US envoy to attend int'l nuclear talks with Iran

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States announced Wednesday a senior American diplomat would attend international nuclear talks with Iran in the highest-ranking meeting between the two foes in three decades.

In a major policy shift, the White House said Under-Secretary of State William Burns would attend the Saturday talks with Iran on a “one-time” mission to underline Washington’s conditions for ending the atomic stalemate.

“This will be a one-time US participation to demonstrate that the P5 plus one ... is united in its longstanding principle that Iran, in order to take advantage of an incentives package that is quite generous, has to halt its nuclear enrichment,” said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

She said Burns would go to Geneva “to listen” to Tehran’s reply to an incentives offer for freezing uranium enrichment. “We are not there to negotiate,” she stressed.

The number-three US diplomat’s presence at the talks between EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Tehran’s nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili will “clarify the consequences” - more sanctions - if Iran rejects the package, she said.