Posted by December 25, 2009
Source:
Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts is considering travel plans to Tehran, which would make him the first high-level emissary to visit Iran since the 1979 hostage crisis soured relations between the two countries, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.
But Frederick Jones, Kerry’s spokesman, said, “John Kerry has no plan to travel to Iran.’’
Kerry, as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has been a high-profile representative of President Obama, who is talking tough to Iran on what the United States believes is a nuclear weapons program, while still offering dialogue.
In October, Kerry personally persuaded President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan to accept a runoff election after fraud marred the first vote, though the runoff was called off after the challenger withdrew.
The Journal reports that the White House would not oppose a Kerry trip. “This sounds like the kind of travel a chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee would – and should – undertake,’’ it quotes a White House official saying.
But the Journal also said that the Obama administration hasn’t decided whether to make Kerry its official representative to Iran, and it’s not clear whether the Iranian regime would welcome him. It said Iranian officials have been dismissive of the possible trip.