Thursday, June 18, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration will pursue talks with Iran on nuclear and other issues regardless of who emerges as president in the aftermath of Iran’s disputed election, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday.
“We are obviously waiting to see the outcome of the internal Iranian processes, but our intent is to pursue whatever opportunities might exist in the future with Iran” to discuss big issues, Clinton told reporters.
President Barack Obama and other top administration officials have carefully tried to stay neutral during the dispute and remain open to engagement with both the current government and whoever might take power.
That effort has not been easy, as shown by Iranian charges Wednesday of undue U.S. meddling in their postelection conflict — an accusation that administration officials shrugged off.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama has been clear that there is “a vigorous debate in Iran, between Iranians, about their leadership.” Gibbs said Obama stands by his defense of principles such as the right of people to demonstrate peacefully.
Clinton also noted that Iran has its own record of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.
“We intend to pursue engagement because we think it is in the interests of the United States and the world community to discuss with the Iranian government important matters such as ... their intentions with their nuclear program, their support of terrorism, their interference with the affairs of their neighbors and other states,” she said.
Speaking after meeting at the State Department with Israel’s new foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, Clinton cited U.S. dialogue during the Cold War with the former Soviet Union as a comparable case in which it makes sense for the United States to negotiate.
with its adversaries.
“We never stopped negotiating with the former Soviet Union,” she said. “They invaded countries. They promoted unrest. But we knew we had an opportunity to learn more, to discuss fully and perhaps to reach better understanding than we might have in the absence of such engagement. So we pursued it.”
Obama has responded cautiously to Iranian opposition allegations that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole last Friday’s election, saying he shared the world’s “deep concerns” but it was “not productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling.”
Thomas Pickering, a former ambassador to Russia and a senior State Department official during the administration of President Bill Clinton, said Wednesday he endorses Obama’s approach.
“It seems to me to be the right thing to do,” he said in a telephone interview. “My own view is that the process of talking to the Iranians is important in and of itself.”
Pickering is a member of the board of directors of the American-Iranian Council, a bipartisan think tank that promotes better relations between the countries.
The two countries broke off diplomatic relations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iranian hard-liners frequently accuse internal enemies of allying with the U.S. and other Western powers to overthrow the ruling system.
Clinton was asked by a reporter about the State Department’s request Monday to Twitter, the social-networking system, that it postpone scheduled maintenance in order to remain available for use in Iran.
“We promote the right of free expression,” she said. “It is the case that one of the means of expression, the use of Twitter, is a very important one not only to the Iranian people but now increasingly around the world, most particularly to young people. I wouldn’t know a Twitter from a tweeter, but apparently it is very important.”
Clinton spokesman P.J. Crowley said the administration awaits a decision by Tehran on whether to accept an invitation to join international talks next week in Trieste, Italy, on ways to help stabilize Afghanistan. Clinton will attend the session, along with foreign ministers from European and other countries.
“Afghanistan is one of those potential areas where Iran and the United States have shared interest in a stable Afghanistan, but we’ll be waiting to see who, if anyone, (from Iran) decides to attend that meeting,” Crowley said.