Britain may push for new talks with Iran

Teheran would be offered a new but unspecified package of incentives.

tony blair 298 88 ap (photo credit: AP [file])
tony blair 298 88 ap
(photo credit: AP [file])
Britain favors drawing the United States into new talks with Iran over Tehran's nuclear program and may float such a plan Monday at a high-level diplomatic meeting outside the UN Security Council, a UN diplomat said Saturday. The diplomat, who demanded anonymity in exchange for divulging the confidential strategy, said the British proposal would have the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, including the United States, sit at the same table with the Iranians, along with Germany. The British plan to float the proposal at a meeting of political directors and senior government officials from France, Britain, Germany, Russia, China and the United States, the diplomat told The Associated Press. The five nations would offer Tehran a new but unspecified package of incentives in exchange for a negotiated settlement on Iranian plans for uranium enrichment, the diplomat said. But talks would only be offered if there was no progress among the five permanent members of the Security Council in agreeing on a strategy on Iran, and if Tehran remain uncooperative, he said. Any such negotiations would then begin by the early summer, he added.