"Iran’s formal written response to international powers on prospective nuclear negotiations “does not have anything really promising in it,” a diplomatic source who had seen the document told POLITICO on condition of anonymity.
The document, being studied in western capitals after being formally handed over today by Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki to the ambassadors representing the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China in Tehran, is still close hold, but some details were relayed on condition of anonymity.
“The idea is that it doesn’t really answer the questions that we have raised with the Iranians,” the diplomatic source said. He indicated that the Iranian letter proposed talks, but not on its nuclear program per se.Iran's response did not make mention of whether it preferred or not to conduct negotiations in the context of the so-called P5+1, the group of UN Security Council permanent members plus Germany that have led efforts to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear program for the last several years. “It basically proposes negotiations on non-nuclear issues,” the diplomat said.
That's predictable, said the National Iranian American Council's Trita Parsi, who hadn't yet seen Iran's response. The Iranians "are not going to be accepting the parameters of the P5+1," Parsi predicted. "But that doesn't mean there can't be negotiations. In the past, the Europeans haven't wanted to discuss Iran's proposal. They only wanted to discuss their own proposal."
The response is shorter than usual, the diplomat said, although he would not specify how many pages. He would not say who had signed Iran’s formal response, but indicated that it was not signed by Mottaki nor by Iran nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, indicating it may have been signed by someone more senior, perhaps Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
U.S. officials said they were still studying the response, and consulting with their allies, and might be prepared to offer more comment on it later today or tomorrow...."
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