Associated Press:
State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Wednesday the United States would be at the table "from now on" when senior diplomats from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany meet with Iranian officials to discuss the nuclear issue. The Bush administration had generally shunned such meetings.
Wood said the decision was conveyed to representatives of Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia by the third-ranking U.S. diplomat, William Burns, at a meeting earlier Wednesday in London.
The group of nations, known as P5+1 "announced earlier that it would invite Iran to attend a new session aimed at breaking a deadlock" in talks about its nuclear program.
"If Iran accepts, we hope this will be the occasion to seriously engage Iran on how to break the logjam of recent years and work in a cooperative manner to resolve the outstanding international concerns about its nuclear program," Burns said. "Any breakthrough will be the result of the collective efforts of all the parties, including Iran."
Iran says it would participate in "honest" talks.
This marks a real change from Bush policy which, frankly, was pretty stupid. The Bush policy was that the US wouldn't talk to Iran until it ended its nuclear program -- at which point, you wonder what there would've been to talk about. It's like the neocons thought meeting face to face with an American was enough of a incentive to get Iran to drop everything. No word on whether the American diplomat was expected to sign autographs. It just made no sense at all.
