Ahmadinejad Offers Talks With Bush

[Dr. Shane]

Ahmadinejad offers to have direct talks with Bush

"Last year, I announced readiness for a televised debate over global issues with his excellency Mr. Bush. And now we announce that I am ready to negotiate with him about bilateral issues as well as regional and international issues," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying on the Web site of Al-Alam.

The Iranian leader did not elaborate on what specifically he wanted to talk to Bush about, but he said the talks "should be held with media present."

..."Instead of offering televised debates or a media spectacle, the United States has offered actual discussions if Iran would only agree to what the international community has asked for repeatedly: stop uranium enrichment and reprocessing," Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House, said Monday. "We're ready whenever they are."

Ahmadinejad's offer was not the first overture he has made to Bush. Last year, Ahmadinejad proposed holding a televised debate with the American president, but the White House called the offer "a diversion from the legitimate concerns" about Iran's nuclear program.

...The U.N. Security Council has imposed sanctions on Tehran over its refusal to freeze enrichment. According to a document by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has started feeding small amounts of uranium gas into centrifuges that can enrich it to weapons-grade level and is already running more than 1,300 of the machines.

The enrichment process can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or — if taken to a higher degree — the material for atomic bombs.

[Kountzer]

There's a certain protocal to international diplomacy. The leader of a country can't just up and state "i want to meet the president with the media present. It doesn't work that way.