US Senate endorses Bush approach to Iran

Washington, June 16 : The US Senate overwhelmingly endorsed President George W. Bush's offer to negotiate with Iran on the nuclear issue and turned back a move that could have repudiated the diplomatic initiative.

It marked the first congressional test of Bush's decision earlier this month to embrace direct negotiations with Tehran on the nuclear issue that he had long opposed.

Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, one of Bush's Republican allies, introduced an amendment to a major defense bill that could have undermined the US approach.

Instead, the Senate approved 99-0 an amendment by Democratic Sen.

Joe Biden of Delaware and Republican Chuck Hagel of Nebraska endorsing the initiative, which included a call for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and reprocessing.

As part of the initiative, Bush agreed with Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China to support a more generous offer of incentives to Iran and a promise of disincentives if Tehran does not halt weapons-related nuclear activities.

The United States and other major powers have accused Iran of trying to build a nuclear weapons but the Islamic republic insists it is only trying to produce nuclear power to meet its growing energy needs.

''The president was right to reverse course and offer to join our closest European allies, as well as Russia and China, in direct talks with Iran to convince it to end its dangerous nuclear program,'' Biden said in a statement.

''The Santorum amendment would have limited the president's flexibility in those crucial negotiations and caused a rift with our allies at the very time we need their support. The end result would have been to isolate ourselves, not Iran, and make success in stopping Tehran's nuclear weapons program less likely.'' Iranian officials on Thursday sent mixed messages about Tehran's views on the major power initiative, prompting State Department spokesman Sean McCormack to tell reporters: ''I don't think we have a final answer yet. We're going to be looking for a definitive response from the Iranian government via (European Union foreign policy chief Javier) Solana.'' Since major powers agreed on their offer to Iran at a June 1 meeting in Vienna, it has become increasingly clear they were soft-pedaling previous threats of possible sanctions.

McCormack said Solana was empowered by the major powers to ''go into whatever level of detail he felt appropriate'' when he presented the offer to Iranian officials last week.

''We are confident that the Iranian regime has a full sense that there are two pathways, both the incentives side as well as the disincentives side,'' depending on whether Iran complies or defies the international community, he added.

Reuters

Related Stories
Iran in nuclear spotlight as world urges response