22/09/2006
Ahmadinejad: Iran could halt enrichment under right terms
By Haaretz Service and Reuters
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday that talks with the European Union on Tehran's nuclear program were "on the right path" and said he would be willing to negotiate suspending his nuclear program under "fair and just conditions."
"We believe those negotiations are moving on the right path. Hopefully others will not disrupt the work - in small ways perhaps. It is a constructive path to take," he told a news conference at United Nations headquarters in New York.
Responding to UN Security Council demands, Ahmadinejad said Iran was prepared to negotiate on suspending uranium enrichment "under fair and just conditions" but he gave no time-frame for doing so.
Advertisement
United States President George W. Bush says that he takes Ahmadinejad at his word when he declares that Israel should be wiped off the map.
"My judgment is you've got to take everybody's word seriously in this world," Bush said in an interview to CNN.
"You can't just hope for the best," he said. "You've got to assume that the leader, when he says that he would like to destroy Israel, means what he says. If you say, 'Well, gosh, maybe he doesn't mean it,' and you turn out to be wrong, you have not done your duty as a world leader."
The West has expressed concern over Iran's nuclear program, and the U.S. has said that it would be prepared to impose sanctions on the Islamic republic. Other nations, however, first want diplomacy to run its course.
Bush told CNN that the U.S. is ready for negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program "only if they verifiably suspended their enrichment program."
"He [Ahmadinejad] knows the options before him. I've made that very clear," he said. "In order for there to be effective diplomacy you can't keep changing your word."
Bush expressed concern that Tehran is "trying to buy time" regarding its atomic program, which it insists is for civilian purposes only, and warned that "time is of the essence."
In his own interview to CNN, the Iranian leader declined to repeat his frequent denials of the Holocaust, saying that, "Since I've talked a lot about this subject, I don't want to repeat myself."
Ahmadinejad has repeatedly expressed doubt over whether the Holocaust took place, and initiated a Tehran cartoon exhibition on the Holocaust in response to the Danish cartoons of Mohammed.
But he did say that the Holocaust was a "pretext for occupying Palestinian land" when the Palestinians had nothing to do with the genocide of Europe's Jews.
"If this event happened, where did it happen?" he asked. "The 'where' is the main question, and it was not in Palestine."
He also criticized what he called American politicians' sensitivity and bias toward Israel, saying that when Israel bombed Lebanon during its recent war with Hezbollah, "it doesn't seem to have created concern among American politicians. But when somebody questions or criticizes the Zionist regime, there is so much reaction."
Ahmadinejad also declined in the interview to repeat his belief that Israel has no right to exist, saying instead that he views it as "an occupying regime."
The Iranian leader said all the residents of Israel and the territories - Jews, Muslims and Christians - should be able to decide "what its fate should be."
In a Wednesday night denate, Ahmadinejad appeared with some of his most-prominent American critics to debate issues including Iran's nuclear program and his denial of the Holocaust.
The 90-minute closed event was hosted by the influential Council on Foreign Relations think tank and, the New York Times reported, boycotted by leaders of several Jewish groups.
The Times quoted Ahmadinejad as saying "The U.S. doesn't speak for the whole world" in its opposition to Iran's nuclear program. It also quoted Robert Blackwill, a former deputy national security adviser under George W. Bush, as wondering after the session whether negotiations with Ahmadinejad's government would ever be possible.
"If this man represents the prevailing government opinion in Tehran, we are headed for a massive confrontation with Iran," Blackwill said.
The meeting represented the highest-level recent attempt at an informal Iranian-American dialogue, even as the two governments exchange heated rhetoric over nuclear weapons, terrorism and Middle East security.
"My sense was that, in principle, he [Ahmadinejad] was open to a relationship [with the United States] but that he wanted the United States to take the initiative to bring it about," said Richard Haass, the council's president and a former senior U.S. State Department official under Bush.
Ahmadinejad "seemed to enjoy the give-and-take" of intellectually sparring with the group of 19 council members, Haass said. "A lot of the significance of the meeting is the fact that it happened," he said.
Ahmadinejad was asked about his persistence in describing the Holocaust as a myth, why Tehran insists on enriching uranium when it could have access to nuclear power without doing so, and why some Iranian newspapers have been closed.
The Times, whose reporter David Sanger attended as an invited member of the council, quoted Ahmadinejad as repeatedly questioning evidence of the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were killed. Noting the 60 million total death toll of World War Two, Ahmadinejad asked, "Why is such prominence given to a small portion of those 60 million?"
Participants said the group, besides Blackwill, included Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser in the administration of George H. W. Bush; former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk and former senior Pentagon official Ashton Carter, both of whom served in the Clinton administration.
No currently serving U.S. officials attended, Haass said.
The United States and Iran have not had diplomatic relations since after the 1979 Islamic revolution. Since then, intermittent attempts to breach the divide have borne little fruit. The crisis over Iran's nuclear ambitions has prompted new calls for dialogue.
Bush and Ahmadinejad have both expressed regard for each other's citizenry and urged people-to-people exchanges.
Earlier this month, the Bush administration gave former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, a moderate who preceded Ahmadinejad, an unrestricted visa to travel widely in the United States, where he gave speeches and held news conferences.
Last week, however, a senior Middle East researcher for the U.S. Congress was denied entry to Iran for a conference.
Ahmadinejad: Iran could halt enrichment under right terms
