U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dismissed a letter that Iran's president sent to President George W. Bush on Monday, saying the first direct communication from an Iranian leader in 27 years does not help resolve the standoff over Tehran's disputed nuclear program. Iran's top nuclear negotiator called the surprise letter a new "diplomatic opening" between the two countries, but Rice said it was not. "This letter is not the place that one would find an opening to engage on the nuclear issue or anything of the sort," the top U.S. diplomat said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It isn't addressing the issues that we're dealing with in a concrete way." Rice said the letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was 17 or 18 pages long and covered history, philosophy and religion. "There's nothing in here that would suggest that we're on any different course than we were before we got the letter," Rice said. A copy of the letter was obtained later by The Associated Press. In it, Ahmadinejad told Bush that democracy had failed, and he criticized the United States over a host of issues ranging from the invasion of Iraq to its support for Israel. It made only an oblique reference to Iran's intentions, asking why "any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East region is translated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime." Rice met privately for more than two hours Monday night with foreign ministers from the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to talk about Iran. Her spokesman gave no details of the substance of the discussions, but described the talks as strategic and not focused on wording of a new security council resolution or other specific steps. Meanwhile, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Bush had been briefed on the letter, which the White House received Monday through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran. He would not comment on whether it was actually signed by the Iranian president. "It does not appear to do anything to address the nuclear concerns" of the international community, McClellan told reporters traveling on Air Force One with Bush to Florida.
