with the Big Six in Istanbul either Tuesday, November 23, or Sunday, December 5, to discuss anything—except Iran’s nuclear program.
But Iran’s nuclear program is all the Big Six want to talk about, so the offer from Iran looked like one that was designed to be rejected and to portray the major powers as unwilling to talk while Iran had shown a willingness to meet in a specific place on a specific date.
The proposed dates and place were contained in a letter that Saeed Jalili, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, sent Tuesday to Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief.
Reuters said the letter was silent on the agenda. But that same day, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast told reporters, “Iran’s talks with the Big Six will not be about Iran’s nuclear issue at all.”
The letter from Jalili was apparently also silent on what had been Iran’s prior demands—that more countries be seated at the table for the talks and that the Big Six first respond to three questions, including an explanation of their goals in the talks and their thoughts on Israel’s nuclear program.
It wasn’t clear what happened to those pre-conditions that were laid down this past summer and repeated ad infinitum—until Jalili’s letter.
The dates proposed were also further slippage from what Iran stated just a week earlier, when it said it would be ready to meet as early as November 10.
Turkey has already announced that it is prepared to host the meeting. That does not mean Turkey will sit at the table. But its foreign minister will be nearby and the meeting’s participants could call on him at any time to try to work out a compromise.
Turkey will not necessarily be a pushover for Iran, however. With all six major powers present, it is unlikely to be interested in lining up with Iran against all six major world powers. In fact, President Abdullah Gul said Monday that Iran “has to be more transparent to convince the international community.”
In a nationally televised speech from Bojnurd last Wednesday, President Ahmadi-nejad flagellated away at the major powers. “You have only one option,” he said. “That is recognizing the right and greatness of the Iranian people. Should you choose that path, nations may forgive you.… But if you want to continue the previous path of arrogance,… these people [Iranians] will pursue you until you end up in hell.”
He said, “The best path for them [the world powers] is to respect other nations, to stop being obstinate, to get out of their glass palaces and sit down like a polite boy and talk on the basis of justice and respect. If they come like this, they may get results. But if they come with arrogance and deception, the response of the Iranian people is the one it has already given.”