Finally, Iran and the United States have begun talking. This itself is an achievement. There is a long way to go, and nobody expects a miracle, but the very fact that the two sides have met and talked at a high diplomatic level for the first time in 30 years is cause for satisfaction. The direct talks were held during Tehran’s negotiations with six world powers at Geneva and brought Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and American Undersecretary of State William Burns face to face for the first time.Last year, Mr Burns had avoided a meeting with Mr Jalili during the Geneva talks. Thursday’s session, held at Genthod, a town where the Swiss government has often brought adversaries together, was described by a western official as ‘significant,’ and an Iranian diplomat who refused to be identified said his country wanted the talks to succeed. This perhaps is indicative of some flexibility on the part of Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, armed as he is now with a fresh mandate.
It is time Iran grasped one major truth about American foreign policy: under President Barack Obama it is markedly different from the pugnacity that characterised the Bush administration’s attitude towards the Muslim world, especially Iran.
In an interview with the BBC in June, President Obama recognised that Iran had the right to nuclear energy. In Prague, a month earlier, the president said he would ‘support Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear energy with rigorous inspections.’ But in his radio interview he made it clear that the international community, too, had ‘a very real interest in preventing a nuclear arms race in the region.’
Prior to the Genthod meeting, an American official said Washington would not threaten Iran with further sanctions. ‘This can’t be a phoney process,’ he said. If the two sides pursue Iran’s nuclear question with the seriousness this sensitive issue deserves there is no reason why America and Iran cannot come to a mutually satisfactory solution. In the meantime, the Obama administration should restrain Israel, which from time to time threatens to use force against Iran.
