9-21-06, 9:04 am

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- The United States, which warned time and again to impose sanctions against Iran, has softened its tone on Iran's nuclear program, the Washington Post said on Wednesday.

Slowly but surely, the White House has muddied what was once clear lines in pursuit of diplomacy, the newspaper said.

As recently as a month ago, U.S. President George W. Bush and his administration firmly demanded that Iran first suspend its nuclear activities before the U.S. would join negotiations on the nuclear program, 'but now U.S. officials have quietly acquiesced in a European-led effort to find a face-saving way for the talks to begin,' the article said.

'With allies balking, negotiations appear more likely than punishment,' the article said. Bush, in his speech on Tuesday to the UN General Assembly, 'used notably mild language when he disucssed Iran, suggesting that the two countries one day will 'be good friends and close partners in the cause of peace.''

Referring Bush's latest speech that U.S. officials 'have no objection to Iran's pursuit of a truly peaceful nuclear power program,' the article said 'this is a reversal from the policy in the first term, when U.S. officials loudly proclaimed that a country with such vast oil and gas reserves has no need for a nuclear program.'

Under pressure from Europeans, the Bush administration dropped that argument late last year, the article said.

From Xinhua