President Barack Obama said he remains willing to speak with
Iran
on
its nuclear program and international sanctions if the
Tehran
follows "a clear set of steps," according to comments published
Thursday.
Obama made the comments to a small group of journalists at the White House
after
U.S.
officials
rebuffed a call for a U.S.-Iran summit.
The Washington Post said the president indicated international sanctions should
remain in place on
Tehran
but
that the regime should have a pathway for a peaceful settlement of the nuclear
issue.
"It is very important to put before the Iranians a clear set of steps that
we would consider sufficient to show that they are not pursuing nuclear
weapons," Obama said, according to the Post.
"They should know what they can say 'yes' to."
The report said Obama left open the possibility that the
U.S.
would
accept a deal that allows
Iran
to
maintain its civilian nuclear program, so long as
Tehran
provides "confidence-building measures" to verify that it is not
building a bomb.
An account of the meeting by The Atlantic magazine said Obama expressed the
view that
Iran
is
feeling the pain from sanctions but not yet changing their policies.
"It may be that their ideological commitment to nuclear weapons is such
that they're not making a simple cost-benefit analysis on this issue,"
Obama was quoted as saying.
"Changing their calculus is very difficult, even though this is painful
for them and we are beginning to see rumblings in
Iran
that
they are surprised by how successful we've been."
On Tuesday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs rebuffed a proposal from
Iran
's
hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for face-to-face summit talks with
Obama.
"We have always said that we'd be willing to sit down and discuss
Iran
's
illicit nuclear program, if
Iran
is
serious about doing that," Gibbs told reporters. "To date, that
seriousness has not been there."