Senate endorses Bush approach to Iran

It marked the first congressional test of Bush's decision earlier this month to embrace direct negotiations with Tehran on the nuclear issue, which he had long opposed.

Separately, national security adviser Stephen Hadley confirmed that European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana did not threaten penalties when he presented a major power compromise proposal to Iran last week.

"Really, the emphasis has been on what would be available as a matter of negotiations. I don't think that Javier Solana, sort of, reviewed a sanctions list. You wouldn't have expected him to," Hadley told reporters.

"The goal here is to try and show to the Iranians an affirmative path, if they will suspend and return to the negotiations. But I think it's also very clear that there is another path if they refuse to do so, and that is a path that will involve consequences for the government," he said.

Iran will be discussed at next week's U.S.-EU summit in Vienna, but no major news is expected, he added.

On Capitol Hill, Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record) of Pennsylvania, one of Bush's Republican allies, introduced an amendment to a major defense bill that could have undermined the U.S. approach.

Instead, the Senate approved 99-0 an amendment by Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware and Republican Chuck Hagel of Nebraska endorsing the initiative, which included a call for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and reprocessing.

As part of the initiative, Bush agreed with Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China to support a more generous offer of incentives to Iran and a promise of disincentives if Tehran does not halt weapons-related nuclear activities.

The United States and other major powers have accused Iran of trying to build a nuclear weapons but the Islamic republic insists it is only trying to produce nuclear power to meet its growing energy needs.

"The president was right to reverse course and offer to join our closest European allies, as well as Russia and China, in direct talks with Iran to convince it to end its dangerous nuclear program," Biden said in a statement.

"The Santorum amendment would have limited the president's flexibility in those crucial negotiations and caused a rift with our allies at the very time we need their support. The end result would have been to isolate ourselves, not Iran, and make success in stopping Tehran's nuclear weapons program less likely."

Iranian officials on Thursday sent mixed messages about Tehran's views on the major power initiative, prompting State Department spokesman Sean McCormack to tell reporters:

"I don't think we have a final answer yet. We're going to be looking for a definitive response from the Iranian government via Solana."

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