U.S.: Door 'left open' for Iran talks

WASHINGTON, June 28 (UPI) -- The U.S. administration has "left the door open" to bilateral diplomacy with Iran despite its crackdown on election protests, an official says.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said Sunday on CBS Television's "Face the Nation" that Iran's moves to forcefully stifle protests of election results giving President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term do not preclude efforts to engage Tehran diplomatically.

"We have an interest in any case in trying to ensure that Iran does not achieve a nuclear weapons capability," Rice said. "We have pursued that through multilateral diplomacy. We've left the door open to bilateral diplomacy, but the choice is really with the Iranians now."

Rice said the fierce protests by supporters of opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Musavi indicates "something profound has happened inside of Iran. We need to see how that plays out. We need to see if indeed the offers that have been made by the international community will be opportunities that the Iranians choose to accept."

Rice said Iran's leaders face a "stark choice" of "greater isolation or ending their nuclear program and their other destabilizing activities and rejoining a responsible community of nations."