Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says that while the United States welcomes the proposed nuclear talks with Iran, it has not dropped its repeated demands that Iran abandon its uranium enrichment program. “We have not dropped or added any conditions.”
The comment was apparently in response to reports earlier in the week that the Obama Administration was going to end its demand that Iran suspend all uranium enrichment before it would enter talks. Iran has ruled out suspending its enrichment of uranium, which it will need when the Bushehr reactor comes on line later this year.
At the same time, State Department spokesman Robert Wood did say they were willing to have “a direct dialogue with Iran,” and would take a look at a proposal the Iranian government is reportedly working on to end the ongoing dispute.
The Iranian government has been working on a civilian nuclear energy program for over a decade and, despite objections from the United States and some of its allies that the program is a cover for a secret military program, the IAEA has repeatedly certified that none of the uranium enriched by Iran has been diverted to any other purpose. Israel in particular has claimed the program is an existential threat to them, and has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran over it.