Interview With BBC Correspondent Mohammad Tabaar

QUESTION: Well, the first question is, there was a meeting of the P5+1 in NY yesterday afternoon at the British Embassy about the sanctions. What happened? Did the P5 and Germany come to an agreement?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY:  They’re still talking; this will take some more time. But the important point is all of the P5 plus Germany as well as the weight of opinion of the Security Council in the UN are convinced that they have to take action. Discussion that may go on for some time is on the details of the action. What a UN Resolution condemning Iran’s refusal to accept 1696 should consist of. What sanctions and such. That’s normal, and that’s proper and that’s just but the underlying point is Iran had a choice that was offered to it not by us but by the international community supported by us. Unfortunately it took the wrong choice. It is proceeding on a course and accelerating that course in fact toward nuclear weapons and the international community will not stand for this any more than it will stand for North Korea doing that. What I want to emphasize however, is that there is no problem with the peaceful use of nuclear energy by the Iranian people and the Iranian government. We support that. The Secretary made that very clear it was also made clear in the offer that Mr. Solana communicated to the Iranian government and we just can’t understand why a government that purports to support the Iranian people would turn down such a generous offer.

QUESTION: Many Iranians believe that the Russians and Chinese will not in the end allow the Security Council to pass a strong resolution and right now we hear stories that the Russians are opposing some parts of the resolution especially the part about the Bushehr nuclear plant. Is there any major obstacle right now, let’s say, are you going to make an exception for Russia with regard to the Bushehr power plant?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: Well I don’t want to get into the details of what an eventual UN Resolution will look like I will say that I suspect that the North Koreans also thought that the Russians and the Chinese would block a strong resolution against them. And if you look at that resolution you will see how extraordinarily strong it is.

QUESTION: But again, when you read the Iranian papers, some say, actually, the North Korean case shows that the U.N. cannot really change Iran’s behaviors, it cannot come up with a strong resolution. So how do you think that you can change Iran’s behavior by passing a resolution?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: Well passing resolutions and imposing sanctions is the way the international community reacts to challenges to peace and security. These are steps that go in the direction of stronger action. I will not discuss our discourse on stronger action; I will simply note that this should be taken very seriously when it is passed, by all Iranians.

QUESTION: Some Iranians say that even if they accept the terms of the Security Council Resolution the U.S. will come up with another excuse. In fact, the Iranian Supreme Leader said a few months ago, he said, whatever we do they are looking for another alibi, another excuse to put pressure on us. If we say, ok we are going to stop this nuclear program, they will talk about human rights, they will talk about terrorism and that the U.S. has problems with the existence of the Islamic Republic. What would you say to them?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: Well, I would say the following. First of all, the U.S. does not have problems with the existence of the Islamic Republic. Every nation has to, every people has to come up with the government, and organizational, and philosophical structures that best reflect that nation. And we leave it to the people of that nation to make those decisions. What we urge is that you have the democratic process so that the people’s views will be heard. And we hope that Iran moves down the road further towards democratic processes. But as I said we have no problem with the existence per say. We have problems with some of the actions. Of course we are going to continue to speak out on terrorism. Look what the Argentinean authorities just revealed on senior Iranian leaders – I mean this is extraordinary – in the attack that killed 85 or more people in Argentina, people who are totally innocent, who had nothing to do with anything, victims of terrorism carried out by the Iranian authorities, and people expect us not to speak out on that? However, we will live up to the agreements that we have signed onto with the P5 and Germany concerning Iran. The offers that are on the table that were provided by Mr. Solana, the Supreme Ruler and the Iranian people have the word of the United States expressed not only through Mr. Solana but directly by Secretary Rice at the end of May that we will do so. Put us to the test! Let me ask that. It’s easy to say we won’t live up to it, I say we will. The only way to find out is to accept these terms and let’s see what happens next.

QUESTION: If Iran stops the nuclear enrichment process, would you be willing to talk about other issues?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: If Iran stops the nuclear process, we are willing to sit down with the P5 and Germany at a high level, face-to-face, and talk to Iran about its nuclear program, about nuclear energy, about trade policies, about, as Secretary Rice said, cultural exchanges and other things. Where this conversation would go, we will see.

QUESTION: Would you talk to them bilaterally?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: We will talk with them in the context of this particular format. We have talked to them bilaterally at various points as you know – on various subjects.

QUESTION: President Bush, two days ago, said that there are three problems with Iran: the nuclear issue, Lebanon, and Iraq. In the past he used to talk about other issues: terrorism, the Arab Israeli issue. Is there a shift here?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: No, not at all. He was highlighting where our priorities are. And of course, with the Lebanon issue, we consider that a terrorist issue because we consider Hezbollah, as we have just since evidence coming out of Argentina, as a terrorist organization. And, in terms of Iraq some of the groups that – in Iraq – that Iran is supporting are terrorist groups. Also, the peace process in Iran’s position is very troubling to us and that’s a major element of Iran’s involvement through Hezbollah in Lebanon. It’s not simply about the Lebanese Shi’a. It is also about Iran exerting pressure on Israel. So I think the President, while mentioning those three, in essence was covering all of the issues of concern to us.

QUESTION: Some Iranian human rights activists and dissidents say that the whole nuclear issue has overshadowed other problems and in the past that the US and the Europeans – they used to talk about human rights, and they would put pressure on Iran and because of this, the whole nuclear issue, no one talks about those things. No one cares about those things anymore. What would your response be?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: Well I’m happy to talk about that right now. The United States, as you know, has granted refugee status to dissidents, to those who suffered oppression in the hands of the authorities. We have spoken out repeatedly, we have condemned actions against minorities, and we have condemned illegal actions by the authorities. We denied a visa to the United States of the current Iranian Interior Minister in part because of his participation in oppression of people and crass violations of human rights. So, I would say that we are trying to do everything we can – we have not forgotten this issue.

QUESTION: I have a question about the 75 – or 85 million dollars that the State Department has allocated to support democracy in Iran. Some Iranian dissidents say that it actually created a lot of problems for them. And, there was a report in the Post a few months ago that just after the U.S. announced that, before even allocating the money – before even giving the money – that a lot of dissidents in Iran and their families have been persecuted by the government, they have been summoned to the Courts and in fact this money may not be that much good – it’s creating a lot of troubles for them. What would you say to that?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: We want to reach out to the Iranian people, we want to have cultural and educational exchanges, we want to get our message across to them – this is normal. We have obviously, a number of issues that divide us, we want to reach those issues through people-to-people programs. That’s normal – we have done that around the world. To then, have a government, which reacts to this in a totally disproportionate and oppressive fashion, then by some circular reasoning blaming us, who are simply doing something that is innocent that is proper, that promotes international peace and understanding among people, that we’re somehow at fault. No, let’s put the finger on the fault where it lies. And that is with the authorities that have put pressure on those people that have arrested those dissidents.

QUESTION: You mentioned cultural exchanges. President Bush, in an interview with David Ignatius, a month ago, he talked about that. He said that what he wants now is more exchanges culturally – exchanges between the Iranians and the Americans. But on the other hand, we hear that the Treasury Department is investigating some basketball players who went to Iran and played on an Iranian team. It doesn’t really seem to be a consistency here.

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: It’s only apparent – I can’t discuss individual cases – but what I can say is that we have increasing broad cultural exchanges with Iranians and we will have more. Nonetheless, these have to occur under American law as they do under, frankly, Iranian laws. And there are certain prerequisites such as the visa process, which as you’re aware, is a complicated one for Iranians and many others, yet we will make it work to promote cultural exchanges. We have laws and regulations that require licenses for commercial activities such as sports activities and the like – musical activities, cultural activities with Iran. All we ask is that people will follow that law and get a license. Our job is to ensure that licenses are issued quickly when the case is legitimate. But, if a license isn’t issued, then you have a problem, and I think that is the issue here.

QUESTION: Some Iranians reformers and dissidents have had a difficult time to come here, to get their visas. In fact, one of them Abdel-Karim Soroush, who is a very well-known Iranian dissident, has taught at Harvard, Princeton, Yale for the past 2 years – he has been waiting for his visa since June. If the U.S. is trying to promote this kind of cultural exchange and events then why not speed up this process? Giving them visa faster so they can come here …

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: We are very aware of the problem with visas. But we ask those who wish to travel to the United States to understand why it is very difficult to travel to the United States right now and it is an obvious result of September 11^th. We certainly don’t blame the Iranian people, or individual Iranians, or individual people from any nationality for that. Nonetheless, our responsibility is to protect everybody in the United States. including visitors here from terrorists, who have declared that they want to create mass murder. Therefore, we have to go through various checks to ensure they we’re not letting in 19 more mass murderers as we did before September 11^th. What I can assure everybody that if there case is legitimate we will get to them.

QUESTION: But these are people who have been persecuted by their own government, are not allowed to teach, to talk, to speak, and yet when they apply for a visa to come here it takes for ever and sometimes, like in one case I heard that he has been waiting since last year and his visa hasn’t been issued.

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: You know, it’s very hard to deal with this in a general level. We know that there is a general problem. The specific case, it depends. It could be that the individual is not a problem but he may have a brother or a close relative who is a problem. It may be that he has the same name as someone who is on our list as a terrorist. You never know. And that is why the individual cases are hard. But what I will say is that A) we know that it is a problem, B) we’re doing our best to fix it.

QUESTION: There was one section in the draft resolution that was being discussed yesterday, that Iranian students who are studying certain fields will not be allowed to go to school outside of Iran, to continue their studies in physics or nuclear science. And there has been consent among a lot of Iranians that that could put pressure on all Iranian students who want to go abroad and study. How do you make sure that this is not going to hurt Iranian students who would like to go abroad and study?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: Again, you want me to talk about the hypotheticals of a resolution that hasn’t been passed. I will say that generally, our view is – and we adhere to that view in the North Korean resolution, and in our general indication of what we would do in Resolution 1696 – would be at least initially to target only those people who are working on nuclear energy. Not because we think nuclear energy in and of itself is a problem, as I said we want Iran to work with us, cooperate with us on nuclear energy, but rather because as long as the nuclear energy program serves as a camouflage for and is being diverted to weapons programs as we believe, we don’t want people to be trained in those areas so useful. But we will do everything we can to restrict any sanctions to those specific targeted areas. And as I said we will be more than happy to lift all of these sanctions the moment those reprocessing units cease functioning.

QUESTION: I believe it was last month when the State Department announced that certain sanctions on spare parts for Airbus engines, I believe, were lifted. Are you going to extend that to Boeing and other planes? Why just Airbus?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: Well – this has been extended to engines that are a problem and our Federal Aviation Administration alerted us to, basically, safety of passengers and because we do care about the Iranian population we do want to have as good of a relationship as possible, we don’t want to be responsible for any accidents. So therefore we took that decision. It’s a limited decision; it’s a change – not in our policy – but it is a new decision that we would allow these engines to be repaired using American parts outside of Iran. And, again, on a case-by-case basis if there are other safety issues we’ll look at them, and we’ll look at them as flexibly as possible keeping in mind our commitment to the Iranian people.

QUESTION: So would you be willing to expand that to Boeing so Iranians could repair their Boeing planes or buy Boeing planes? I think two weeks ago, the Iranians finally decided to buy some Russian-made planes which was a very difficult decision to make.

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: Well, once again, buying aircraft is different. We do have commercial restrictions for very obvious reasons including compelling evidence that Iranian civilian aircraft have been used to move weapons and certainly to move terrorists. And we are very concerned about that. So generally we don’t want to participate in that. The engine issue was a different one. Those planes were going to be flown with or without our repairs. In order to remove danger from Iranian and other passengers we took that decision.

QUESTION: Iraq – there was, I think, a roundtable discussion here, with you a few months ago, and I remember I asked you, I said is the talk between Iran and the US or Iraq going to happen. You said yes and I said when? And you used the Turkish phrase, which was only God knows – I don’t remember what exactly it was. Is it going to happen?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: I hope so. I see no compelling reason why it shouldn’t. We still have the problem – Iranian support for certain splinter groups and militias. And the provision of technology, particularly for IEDs and we’ll see.

QUESTION: So do you think Iran is creating troubles in Iraq for the US?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: I think that Iran, as General Casey said the other day, is among the nations that are not being helpful.

QUESTION: What exactly are they doing?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: Well, as I said, they are supporting some splinter groups that are attacking coalition forces, attacking Iraqi forces. They are introducing some of these very sophisticated improvised explosives that are being used almost exclusively against our troops and British troops. And they are not being helpful in Basra as British forces and the British government have both said. And it goes on from there. What I want to underline is we have no disagreement with Iran’s interest in having a strong relationship with its neighboring country – trade relations, we understand the history, we understand that Iran certainly doesn’t want to be invaded again as it was in 1980 from Iraq. So obviously it’s going to be an active player there. We welcome all neighbors being active players. But, we draw the line at supporting criminal and terrorist groups.

QUESTION: Some Iranian officials say that when they cooperated in Afghanistan, it wasn’t actually a very sweet experience. They say right afterwards the Bush administration called Iran the axis of evil. They say why do you expect us to cooperate in Iraq if when we tried to be nice and do something nice you don’t really return our goodwill gesture?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: Well, we appreciate the cooperation that we saw in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, we would like Iran to do more against Al-Qaeda prisoners and personnel that flow through that country, sometimes between Afghanistan and Iraq. We would like them to take action to stabilize the situation rather than to make it worse in Lebanon. We would like them to, as you know, end their nuclear weapons program. These were all problems in 2001, 2002, 2003 – these are not new problems that were discovered after they were helpful in Afghanistan. Thus, we certainly have done nothing to hurt their interests in Afghanistan. We treat that as one issue, we did have discussions over Afghanistan – numerous discussions in numerous forums. So where they have cooperated with us, we have cooperated with them. I think that that is a good example where they have not cooperated on all these other things we bring that to the attention of the world such as in the President’s speech so I think those are apples and oranges. I don’t think that good behavior in one area- which is acknowledged and generates cooperation – should be an excuse not to criticize bad behavior done in other areas. Are we to be silent about what happened in Argentina because that did not happen in Afghanistan? No.

QUESTION: They say if we helped the U.S. to stabilize Iraq, we are releasing 150,000 soldiers to come after us, after Iraq.

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: They would be releasing 150,000 soldiers first of all to go back home, secondly to maintain regional peace and stability. If those 150,000 soldiers wanted to invade Iran, they could have done it a long time ago. We have no desire to invade Iran. We have only a desire to live in peace with the Iranians and it’s in the Iranian interest to encourage them.

QUESTION: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini came out a few months ago and he said that Iran is willing to talk to the Americans over Iraq. And many Iranians saw that as a strategic shift because in the past it was almost a crime to talk about talking to the United States. And then after that the U.S. said that they postponed the talk in Iraq, which the Iranian leadership believes that it actually embarrassed Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader, because the moment he came out and said we are willing to talk, the Americans said we are not going to talk; they postponed that. What happened that the talk – and also the Americans they know the Iranians postponed that – what happened?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: I can’t get into the details; I would just simply say that, it proved to be very hard to organize. Discussions and – I’ll just leave it at that without going further.

QUESTION: Can you tell us a little about this Iran Policy Team. What is it? And is it new?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: No, it is a tradition in the Department of State to have desks that cover a given issue or a given country. We are increasing our efforts to reach out to Iran, as you discussed earlier and as I mentioned, we certainly recognize that Iran is an important country, it deserves important attention and it is given that. We have an office here; we have people throughout the region that are working on Iranian issues, trying to learn Farsi, because we don’t have an embassy. So without an embassy we have to compensate as best we can. But we do recognize that Iran is an important country and we are trying to expand our knowledge of the country, we are trying to expand our ability to reach out to the people and to convince the government that we mean it no ill, we just simply want a change in behavior.

QUESTION: Many Iranians are worried – within the government - that the U.S. by opening an Iran office in Dubai is trying to sabotage or is still pursuing a regime change policy with regard to Iran. Is the office in Dubai, is it focused on regime change in Iran? What is it?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: Well how could it be focused on regime change when I told you about 20 minutes ago that we don’t do regime change. What it is focused on is learning more about Iran because as I said we don’t have an embassy. And it is only one of a number of places and locations where we have folks who are following Iranian affairs, who speak Farsi, and who are trying to reach out to the Iranian people. What we are trying to do is the work that an embassy normally does only doing that at a distance.

QUESTION: Some foreign policy experts say that the U.S. doesn’t have a policy toward Iran. It’s just an attitude, no policy. If you want in one sentence, what kind of policy do you have toward Iran? What is it? Is it containment, is it regime change? You said it’s not regime change, what is it? What kind of policy do you have toward Iran?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: Our policy toward Iran is to use all of the means at our disposal to convince the Iranian government to change behaviors – and it knows the behaviors that are destabilizing the region, costing the Iranian people, and the publics throughout that region, a great deal in terms of security, stability, and economic development, and to join the international community. We have a country, for example, that denies all of the U.N. Security Council Resolutions concerning Israel and the Arabs. We have a country that rejects a U.N. Security Council Resolution passed not three months ago, 1696. This isn’t proper behavior in the international community, yet this country expects the international community to rise to its defense, to grant it all of its privileges, to invite it into its institutions, while simply ignoring - or treating with spite - the actions and the decisions of the international community. That’s the behavior that we are trying to get to cease.

QUESTION: Did the experience of Iraq – it showed that you can’t really bring democracy to a country over night. If that’s the case, then it means that bringing democracy to Iran will take a long time too. Does it mean that we are not going to be in interaction with Iran as long as there is not democracy?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: No, no, I wouldn’t say that. We have interaction, for example, with Libya. We have [indiscernible] of issues with Libya because Libya has changed its behavior on terrorism and on weapons of mass destruction. It is not a democracy. We hope it will be – we are working to that end. But right now we have a good relationship with Libya, because Libya took the right decision. And our relations with Iran will improve dramatically the moment it takes decisions similar to Libya’s. And then we hope it will become more democratic. In terms of Iraq, no, I would say if there is one thing that we did learn out of Iraq it is that democratic processes actually do work and that there is a thirst for these in the Middle East as we saw by the number of people who were willing to vote in two elections in and a referendum despite threats. So, that’s not the problem. There are many other problems related to Iraq but I would say democratic processes and support for them is not one of them.

QUESTION: If Iran changes its behavior you said you are willing to engage, but then how do you make sure that it is not going to be at the expense of human rights and democracy?

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: Well, you know these are even more impossible questions than all of the others you posed. We are imperfect. But we have done this with many countries all round the world since 1918 at some periods, such as in the 1930s we did not live up to our international responsibilities - we think we have generally done so since 1941 - and by and large, you know, we have many tools to - in a legitimate and open way – persuade countries to join the international consensus be it on trade issues, be it on democratic values, be it on tolerance and internal liberalism and freedom. And countries have to go at their own pace, they have to take their decisions. But if they are willing to go down this road and not be a threat to their neighbors, they will find a good friend in the United States and someone who can help them. If they want to be a threat to their neighbors, as Iran is today, then they will find a country that is willing to stand up to them with whatever it takes.

QUESTION: Thank you very much Mr. Ambassador.

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY: Thank you.