More than two weeks after the White House gave Iran “weeks, not months” to resume nuclear talks, the administration said Thursday a more specific timetable would not be “respectful of the regime.”
“We’re not trying to do this through an arbitrary set of deadlines,” said National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. “We’re trying to do this in a way that is respectful of the Iranian people and respectful of the regime.”
Hadley’s remark about being “respectful of the regime” came three days after President Bush appeared to suggest the regime was not worthy of respect.
“The leaders of Iran sponsor terror, deny liberty and human rights to their people and threaten the existence of our ally Israel,” Bush said. “And by pursuing nuclear activities that mask its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, the regime is acting in defiance of its
treaty obligations.”
Bush has always said he wanted the Iranians to respond within “weeks, not months” to a package of incentives that was offered on June 6 with the goal of coaxing Tehran back to the negotiating table. The West has offered increased trade opportunities and a light water nuclear reactor if Iran verifiably suspends enrichment of uranium that could be used in nuclear weapons.
On Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said consideration of the incentives would take months, not weeks.
“Hopefully, we will present our views about the package by mid-August,” he ventured. Bush countered: “It seems like an awful long time.”
That sentiment was reiterated by Hadley on Thursday, although he refused to set a more specific timetable.
“June, July, August — that’s three; that begins to sound like months, doesn’t it?” he told reporters in Budapest, where he was traveling with Bush. “Now it’s true, months are made of weeks, so arguably, everything is in weeks. But come on.”
