Europe's leading nations, yielding to US demands for a tougher stance on Iran, warned on Friday that any failure by the Iranian government to give up its suspected nuclear arms program would leave them "no choice" but to seek punishments at the UN Security Council.
The European warning came as a diplomatic counterpart to a statement by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice confirming that the US, too, had shifted its position on Iran -- in its case toward a more conciliatory approach of offering limited economic incentives if Iran cooperated on nuclear matters.
Rice said that US President George W. Bush would drop his objections to Iran's application to the WTO and would "consider, on a case-by-case basis, the licensing of spare parts of Iranian civilian aircraft."
"We share the desire of European governments to secure Iran's adherence to its obligations through peaceful and diplomatic means," she said in the statement.
"Today's announcement demonstrates that we are prepared to take practical steps to support European efforts to this end," Rice said.
Taken together, the statements, issued in an orchestrated fashion in Washington and Brussels, Belgium, opened a new phase in efforts to defuse the crisis over Iran's nuclear program.
Now that Europe and the US are in harmony on specific incentives and threats, there is an expectation that talks can move forward. In the last two years, Iran's nuclear program has moved up on the agenda for the US and Europe, but there has been a gulf over how sternly to deal with it.
European officials said the agreement's importance went beyond Iran, because it showed that Bush had decided to throw his support behind the effort. What that also represented, some in the administration acknowledged, was a White House move to restrain administration hawks for now.
Rice and other officials acknowledged that Bush moved only after becoming convinced that he was in danger of being blamed if the talks failed because he had repeatedly rebuffed European demands to join in the incentives.
The administration has been sensitive to the charge by conservatives and others that going too far to placate the Europeans could put the administration in the position of legitimizing Iran's government, overlooking its links to terrorism, and rewarding it for bad behavior.
But Rice and other officials said the administration's view of Iran as a rogue state was unchanged. All that had changed, she said, was the way of dealing with Iran.
No timetable was set for negotiations. Rice and other officials hinted that a quick deadline might force Iran to walk away and resume suspended uranium enrichment.
A European official, endorsing that view, said, "Iran right now has suspended its activities, verified by inspections. That means we don't have to be in such a hurry. If the Iranians try to cheat, we're in a position to know it."
US and European officials also emphasized on Friday that their joint agreement meant that, at some point in the talks, the West would raise concerns about Iran's support of Hezbollah and other groups.
The announcements, a culmination of weeks of negotiations led by Rice, clarified aspects of her talks. For example, US and European officials said the statements made clear that the West would not tolerate Iran enriching uranium for civilian nuclear energy, despite international accords that allow it.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image