U.S. Willing to Talk With Iran, Shultz Declares

Secretary of State George P. Shultz said Tuesday that the United States is now willing to have a “direct dialogue” with Iran, and he disclosed that in recent months U.S. officials have received a number of indirect overtures from Iran apparently aimed at improving relations.

In his first public remarks since U.S. forces mistakenly shot down an Iranian commercial airliner Sunday, Shultz emphasized the willingness of the United States to negotiate with Iran and seemed especially eager to defuse tension in the Persian Gulf.

“We’ve had a number of--I guess you’d call them probes--from Iran through third parties, saying they (Iran) would like to talk with us,” Shultz told reporters aboard his plane on the first leg of a trip to Asia.

Rather than try to communicate through a number of intermediaries, the secretary said, “we have said that we are prepared for one. . . . We’re prepared to have a direct dialogue with them.”

Shultz set no preconditions for talks with Iran. In the past, when Iranian officials have suggested the possibility of direct talks with the United States concerning the American hostages in Lebanon, the United States has said that the release of the hostages was not a matter for negotiation.

The tone of Shultz’s remarks was strikingly conciliatory, however. Speaking of the U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf, he said: “We’re not there in a confrontational mode. . . . We’re there to protect our interests and those of our friends.”

Favors No Change

At the same time, he emphasized that he does not favor any change in the U.S. policy of sending warships to the Persian Gulf, or in the liberalized rules of engagement that led to the weekend hostilities.

Over the last several years, the United States and Iran have conducted some official business with one another through Swiss and Algerian intermediaries.

After the shooting down of the Iranian aircraft, Shultz said, the United States sent another indirect message to Iran through the Swiss government that “basically stated our view as to what took place, that’s all.” U.S. officials said that no reply had been received from Tehran.

Shultz and other U.S. officials maintained Tuesday that in expressing a willingness to enter into direct talks with Iran, the secretary was merely repeating longstanding American policy.

Iran-Canada Ties

But Shultz noted pointedly that, in recent months, Iran has been willing to upgrade its relations with Western countries such as France and Canada. In the case of Canada, he said, Iran dropped its insistence that Canada apologize for secretly harboring U.S. diplomats during the 1979-81 hostage crisis.

“If Iran has decided to normalize itself and its basic diplomatic stance, that’s a good thing,” Shultz said. “But we’ll have to see how it goes.”

Until Tuesday, U.S. officials had said nothing in public about any recent “probes” or overtures from Iran. They had denied repeatedly a series of reports that U.S. officials such as U.N. Ambassador Vernon A. Walters might be conducting secret talks with Iran.

Shultz and U.S. officials traveling with him repeated Tuesday that no American officials are currently engaged in negotiations with Iran. But Shultz said that over the last few months, the United States has received several feelers from Iran “in different settings.”

From Various Sources

These overtures have come from private individuals and from governments, the officials said. One of them, about two months ago, came from a government that seemed to be a qualified, authoritative intermediary. U.S. officials would not identify the country.

Shultz said the United States sent back a message through the intermediary seeking at first to set up continuing indirect talks. The message for Iran, Shultz said, was this: “We are willing to establish a channel, a single, authoritative channel, so name one. . . . We don’t want to have talks at random with people.”

So far, Shultz said, nothing has come of these overtures. Asked why not, he replied, “You’d have to ask them.”

Although the United States had not previously disclosed these overtures from Iran, U.S. officials insisted that Shultz was merely responding to questions about relations between the two countries and that his disclosure had nothing to do with the weekend incident in the Persian Gulf.

Dampening Speculation

U.S. officials sought to dampen speculation that the United States might be on the verge of entering into talks with Iran. “There’s no reason to believe anything was imminent or is imminent,” a State Department official said.

Shultz seemed to be seeking general discussions with Iran aimed at settling the Iran-Iraq War and improving relations between Tehran and the United States. He did not mention the possibility of narrower talks to resolve issues concerning the downed Iranian airliner.

“We will continue to seek an end to the Iran-Iraq War,” Shultz said. “That’s the basic problem here. It’s something that should be stopped, and this tragedy only underscores that point.”

‘A Little Easier’

Recent Iraqi military gains have restored the two armies to positions similar to those that existed before the Iran-Iraq War began in 1980, and Shultz said that “should make it a little easier” to find a solution to the war.

He did not explain why he was emphasizing the possibility of negotiations with Iran now, at a time when the regime in Tehran is particularly incensed about the U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf.

Asked about the possibility that Iran will retaliate against the United States through terrorism or some other violent incident, Shultz replied: “There’s always that possibility. That’s one of our problems with Iran. It is a state that has sponsored terrorism. . . . Of course we are concerned about that. But it isn’t as though this incident has caused Iran to decide to use terrorism as a tactic.”