By Gareth Porter
"The US decision to send the State Department's third-ranking official to sit in on the meeting between European Union foreign affairs chief Javier Solana and Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili Saturday has been hailed as a major diplomatic breakthrough, but it is too soon to pop the champagne cork.
The caveats associated with decision and the circumstances surrounding it suggest that it may be yet another in a string of non-decisions on diplomatic talks and other Iran policy issues by George W. Bush over the past three years......
Any sign of US interest in negotiations has encouraged Iranian leaders to be more forthcoming on talks. Even Rice's willingness to sign the six-power incentives document was reported by the Times to have "visibly stunned" Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki. So Iran may well seek to exploit Burns's presence in the meeting to offer a new proposal for a deal in order to extend the talks.
But against Bush's history of pulling back from negotiating decisions under Cheney's influence, the approval of the Burns trip to Geneva for a single meeting with Iran's negotiator seems more like a Bush non-decision on Iran policy than it does a fundamental policy shift."
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