WAR.WIRE
Iran detects easing of US stand on nuclear dispute
 TEHRAN (AFP) Mar 03, 2005
 A senior Iranian nuclear official said Thursday that Washington was easing its stand on Tehran's nuclear row with the West and would "probably" support European diplomatic efforts to settle the dispute.

"We can clearly detect a turning point in the policy of the Americans," Hossein Mussavian, spokesman for Iran's nuclear negotiating team, told state television.

"The United States is in the process of revising its past policies. They will probably accept the European request to show more flexibility and support the negotiations process launched with Iran," he said.

Iran, which is negotiating with the European Union over its nuclear activities, says the programme is only for energy purposes and has denied any plans to build the bomb as alleged by the United States.

A senior State Department official said the United States had promised an early answer to new European proposals for persuading Iran to renounce suspect nuclear activities.

The official said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice discussed the next steps towards Iran with her EU, German, British and French counterparts on Tuesday in London.

"They said, 'Can you support a couple of things we want to do?' and we said we will try to get them an answer. We are looking at this. We will try to get an answer soon," said the official.

The United States, which had initially kept a distance from the negotiations between the so-called EU-3 and Iran, signalled Monday it was now studying ways of boosting its support.

Among the enticements reportedly under consideration were support for Iranian membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and an offer to help Tehran procure spare parts for its aging fleet of passenger planes.

Mussavian said the United States did not want "to be blamed for a failure in the negotiations between the Europeans and Iran ... We will probably see a change in US policy within one or two months".

Germany, France and Britain joined the United States and the United Nations nuclear watchdog Wednesday in calling on Iran to show more transparency regarding its nuclear activities.

The three European Union countries, which have been negotiating with Iran to stop its uranium enrichment programme in exchange for trade and security benefits, issued a joint statement to the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. The IAEA had reported key areas where Iran was refusing to cooperate with UN inspectors.