WarSclerotic

Obama offered to reestablish ties with Iran, paper reports | The Times of Israel.

Diplomatic incentives package, including embassies in Tehran and Washington, rebuffed by Iran, according to Maariv

A mural outside the former US Embassy in Tehran. (photo credit: CC-BY-SA davehighbury, Flickr)

The US reportedly offered to reestablish full diplomatic ties with Iran as part of a bid to hold direct talks with the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program, an Israeli daily reported Sunday.

Iran rebuffed the “diplomatic hand” offered by the White House shortly after President Barack Obama took office in 2008, Maariv reported, citing “Western sources very close to the administration.”

The information comes on the heels of reports earlier this month that the US and Iran held back channel contacts toward establishing direct talks over Tehran’s nuclear program. Both the White House and Iran denied the reports.

According to Maariv, however, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns met with chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili for an hour in 2009, and one other meeting between officials from both sides took place as well.

Included in the diplomatic incentives package offered by Washington would be the opening of interest sections in Washington and Tehran, with the possibility of expanding to full diplomatic ties, with US and Iranian embassies in each other’s capitals. Washington also reportedly offered security cooperation between the countries, direct flights between the US and Iran and the granting of visas to Iranian wishing to visit the US.

If true, the report would mark a sea change in American policy toward Iran, which was officially cut in 1980 when the Shah was overthrown and workers in the American Embassy held hostage for over a year. The US currently maintains a trade embargo with Iran and any diplomatic contacts are officially handled through third parties

According to Maariv, Iran rejected the attempt to reestablish ties out of fear that the regime in Tehran would become weakened by normalization with Washington.

The meeting between Burns and Jalili was reportedly held on the sidelines of talks between Tehran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany, also known as the P5+1.

Those talks, which Jerusalem has characterized as a stalling tactic by Tehran to buy time to develop its nuclear program to weapons capabilities, have mostly failed, despite several attempts to hash over curbs to Iran’s uranium enrichment activities.

Last week, the New York Times and NBC reported that Washington had held secret contacts with Iran with the goal of holding one-on-one negotiations over their nuclear program. According to the report in the New York Times, Iran was open to the possibility, but asked to wait until after the American elections on November 6 so they would know who they were negotiating with.

The White House denied the report, but said it has always had an offer on the table for Iran to engage in direct negotiations.

In Jerusalem, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon said he knew about the contacts and welcomed them while Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said he hoped the Obama administration’s denial was true.

Iran’s nuclear program is widely believed to be for military purposes, a claim Iran denies.

Israel considers an Iranian bomb to be an existential threat and has reportedly lobbied for military action against the program, while the US and much of the West maintain that time remains for sanctions and diplomacy to convince Iran to pull back.

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