U.S. calls for high-level multilateral meeting with Iran over nuclear issues

WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- The United States on Friday proposed to hold multilateral talks with Iran to find out if the Islamic Republic is really willing to address nuclear and other concerns.

"If you go to the Iran document, it says the Iranian nation is prepared to enter into dialogue and negotiation and so on and so forth," Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip Crowley told reporters.

"We will seek an early meeting, and we will seek to test Iran's willingness to engage," Crowley said.

On possible theme of the meeting, Crowley said, "From the standpoint of the international community, the central issue that we have is the nuclear issue. If we have talks, we will plan to bring up the nuclear issue."

"We will hope, as we said earlier this week in the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), that Iran will choose to engage the international community, to address the concerns that we have about the nuclear program."

The senior U.S. official noted that "it's not just a meeting for meeting's sake, it is a meeting to be able to see if Iran is willing to engage us seriously on these issues."

Under the U.S. proposal, the meeting will be involving senior officials from Iran, the permanent five members of the UN Security Council -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France -- plus Germany.