Rocard’s visit to Iran puts Hollande ‘in trouble’

Former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard went to Iran for a private visit, not at the request of President-elect Francois Hollande, according to a Socialist lawmaker. “It was a purely individual initiative,” Socialist lawmaker Arnaud Montebourg said in an interview, adding that he doesn’t know whether the Socialist Party will sanction Rocard for the trip. Jean-Francois Cope, who heads outgoing President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement party, said today he wants Hollande to clarify his position on Iran. “I don’t know what a private initiative is,” Cope said today in an interview on the France Inter radio station. Rocard “is close to Francois Hollande,” Cope said. “Now we discover he’s received with all the honors by Iranian leaders. I can’t believe Rocard did this in total disconnect with Hollande.” Top Iranian officials have told visiting Michel Rocard they are prepared to take \"forward steps\" to resolve the standoff over Tehran\'s nuclear programme at upcoming talks in Baghdad, the French politician said on Monday. Rocard, during a private visit to Tehran at the invitation of the Islamic republic, met with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi and the secretary of Iran\'s Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili, who is also Tehran\'s chief nuclear negotiator. \"Salehi assured me that Iran was ready to take forward steps,\" at the May 23 Baghdad talks with major world powers, which is aimed at ending the crisis over Iran\'s controversial nuclear enrichment programme, Rocard said in an interview. He said that Aladin Borujerdi, the head of Iranian parliament\'s foreign policy commission, had also told him that Tehran was ready to \"reset the counters to zero\" in the Baghdad talks so as not to drag the dialogue into an exchange of accusations made by both sides over past years. \"I had no concrete commitments but I have a feeling that the Iranians want to convey a message of goodwill before Baghdad,\" said Rocard. He said that on his part he had stressed the need for Iran to \"respond concretely and in detail\" to questions posed by the international community on the nuclear programme, including those raised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Iran and the UN nuclear agency on Monday went into two days of talks in Vienna ahead of the crucial dialogue in Baghdad. The meeting between Iran\'s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, and chief inspector Hermann Nackaerts aimed at clarifying suspicions Tehran had done nuclear weapons research. Rocard stressed to the Iranian officials that Paris \"has not changed its firm position\" on the nuclear issue after the May 6 election of socialist Francois Hollande as the next French president. \"I insisted that France will remain totally supportive of its partners in the negotiations\" between Iran and the group of 5+1 -- the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany, said Rocard. The Baghdad dialogue comes after Iran and the world powers resumed negotiations over the suspected atomic drive of Tehran in Istanbul in April after more than a year of hiatus. Western nations suspect that Iran is seeking a weapons capability masked by its civilian nuclear programme. Tehran vehemently denies the charge. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast on Monday reiterated that Tehran will \"welcome\" a Baghdad meeting which is not influenced by \"pressure and preconditions,\" the Fars news agency quoted him as saying. \"If 5+1 intends to cooperate in a positive atmosphere in the talks, we will welcome such negotiations. Fortunately there was a positive atmosphere in Istanbul which formed a basis for talks founded on Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This is a good framework,\" Mehmanparast said. \"According to NPT we have some obligations and some rights that we should enjoy. But we have to wait until Baghdad talks for the details of the agreement,\" he added. The Iranian media reported late Sunday that Jalili had told Rocard that \"any kind of wrong calculations by the West will not yield success in the talks. In Baghdad we are awaiting actions to secure the Iranian people\'s trust.\"