US ready to join talks with Iran

The United States is ready to sit at the same table with Iran and other nations for talks on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions if the Islamic republic gives up uranium enrichment, diplomats said today.

But the diplomats said Washington would only do so if Russia and China agreed to back UN Security Council sanctions against Iran if it remains defiant on the enrichment issue.

One of the diplomats said the Bush administration was planning to make an official announcement later in the day on Washington’s conditional readiness to join in such talks.

The development is significant – the United States has had no official direct talks with the Iranian since the two countries cut diplomatic ties following the occupation of the US Embassy in Tehran by radicals in 1979.