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Former foreign minister Ali-Akbar Velayati, who advises Iran's supreme leader, said Tuesday that a recent international offer to resolve the controversy over Iran's nuclear program was acceptable "in principle," the Financial Times of London reported Wednesday.[1] -- But "Iran has not officially responded to the offer from world powers and it is not clear to what extent Mr. Velayati was expressing the leader’s position," Najmeh Bozorgmehr and James Blitz said. -- But "analysts usually take Mr. Velayati’s statements on international issues as being close to Ayatollah Khamenei’s position," they said. -- "Diplomats said his statements showed that the regime was reflecting seriously on the package." ...

IRAN SAYS OFFER IS ACCEPTABLE 'IN PRINCIPLE'
By Najmeh Bozorgmehr (Tehran) and James Blitz (London)

A senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader indicated on Tuesday that Tehran could look favorably on the recent international offer put to it, describing the proposal as acceptable “in principle.”

Ali-Akbar Velayati, a former foreign minister who advises Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s top leader, on international issues, said it was “expedient” for Iran to resume nuclear negotiations on the offer made by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany.

He said the U.S. and Israel, unlike Europe, wished to see Iran “isolated” and “tell the public opinion in the world that Iran is not for international work and negotiations,” in order to push for U.N. resolutions, military threats, and economic sanctions.

“[If] those who act against our interests want us not to accept [the proposal], then our expedience is in accepting it,” he told Jomhouri-Eslami newspaper.

According to Mr. Velayati, talks on the package of incentives delivered to Tehran last month could start by first going for a pre-negotiation phase. This so-called “freeze-for-freeze,” during which Iran would stop expanding its uranium enrichment program while the U.N. Security Council stopped further sanctions, was a sweetener included in the offer handed to the Iranian authorities by Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief.

In a second phase, however, Iran would have to suspend uranium enrichment and serious negotiations on the future of the nuclear program would begin.

But while the proposal envisaged a six-week deadline for this phase, Mr. Velayati said this time limit was unacceptable because it was not clear how long it could take to set an agenda for the full negotiations.

Mr. Velayati suggested the two sides stick to their fundamentals. “They say Iran should not make an atomic bomb and we say Iran needs nuclear energy. These two principles are your and our red lines which should be the basis for negotiations and [can be] agreed on,” he said.

Iran has not officially responded to the offer from world powers and it is not clear to what extent Mr. Velayati was expressing the leader’s position.

But analysts usually take Mr. Velayati’s statements on international issues as being close to Ayatollah Khamenei’s position. Diplomats said his statements showed that the regime was reflecting seriously on the package.

Mr. Velayati did not comment on the key condition in the nuclear package -- that negotiations would go forward only when Iran had suspended uranium enrichment -- but nor did he repeat Iran’s standard line that suspension was out of question.

He insisted that Iran had reached its goal of acquiring nuclear energy which “is in Iranian experts’ brain now” and that it was time to “institutionalize it through talks and thought.”

Cristina Gallach, Mr. Solana’s spokeswoman, welcomed Mr. Velayati’s comments.

“It would be good if those words were followed by a positive response to the offer we have made,” she said. “So far, we have not yet received any formal reply from Iran. But we have been following the debate in the Iranian media and parliament.”