Rice: Iran Letter Doesn't Resolve Standoff

[villager]

translation: we will not be deterred from starting a nuclear war!

Rice: Iran Letter Doesn't Resolve Standoff

By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer

NEW YORK - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dismissed a letter that
Iran's president sent to President Bush on Monday, saying the first direct communication from an Iranian leader in 27 years does not help resolve the standoff over Tehran's disputed nuclear program.


Iran's top nuclear negotiator called the surprise letter a new "diplomatic opening" between the two countries, but Rice said it was not. "This letter is not the place that one would find an opening to engage on the nuclear issue or anything of the sort," the top U.S. diplomat said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It isn't addressing the issues that we're dealing with in a concrete way."

Rice said the letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was 17 or 18 pages long and covered history, philosophy and religion. Rice's comments were the most detailed response from the United States to the letter, the first from an Iranian head of state to an American president since the 1979 hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

She would not discuss the contents in detail but made clear that the United States would not change its tack on Iran. "There's nothing in here that would suggest that we're on any different course than we were before we got the letter," Rice said.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060509/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_us

[flamingyouth]

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