U.S. Seeks international Consensus on Nuclear Iran

By Alan Gray, NewsBlaze

In a State Department briefing, Adam Ereli said "The international community wants Iran to be clear about what it's doing, to be transparent, to stop pursuing a nuclear weapons program under the guise of a civilian nuclear program."

The EU-3 of the United Kingdom, France and Germany are leading the international effort in dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue. The United States supports the EU-3 initiative.

Secretary Condoleeza Rice, at an interview with Time Magazine Editorial Board said she doesn't think Iran would go so far as to allow themselves to be isolated internationally.

"Ultimately, I don't believe the Iranians can afford to be completely isolated from the international community in the way that a referral to the UN Security Council that is not responded to positively by Iran, that kind of isolation would be brought on the Iranian Government."

"Frankly, the North Koreans are much more capable of isolation from the international system just by the nature of their regime. The Iranian people are accustomed to interaction with the international community. This is a very worldly population that is accustomed to being a part of the international economy, international politics. I don't think Iran wants to get that isolated. And I think it's one reason that they have been so anxious to avoid referral to the Security Council. So I think there's still a lot of levers to get them back into negotiations."

Although the Russians put together a civil nuclear program for the Iranians at Bushehr, there is a fuel take-back provision so that the Iranians could not enrich and reprocess. It’s telling that when the EU-3 put a proposal on the table, it was not for enrichment and reprocessing. Nobody trusts them.

Iran's problem is not just coming into compliance, they need to repair the sense that Iran is a threat to the international system because ultimately if they keep doing what they’ve done so far, people are going to be even more suspicious.

Source: From information at the Department of State

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