Security Conference

German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed some of the most important political and military figures in the world to the annual international security conference in Munich over the weekend. As with previous year's, the 2007 conference threw up its fair share of controversy.

In recent year's, the Munich conference has provided the setting for a nervous appearance by Donald Rumsfeld in 2005, when the former US secretary of defense faced possible war crime charges, and Merkel's assertion last year that the threat posed by Iran was comparable to the rise of the Nazis in the early 1930's.

Grabbing the majority of the limelight this year was Russian President Vladimir Putin who told the high-ranking audience in no uncertain terms that the United States bore the responsibility for many of the world's worst security issues.

As hosts of the conference, it came down to the Germans to diffuse the situation. German government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said Putin had been speaking in his own characteristic style at a venue that had "a suitable and longstanding context" for plain talking and added that Putin's comments "did not represent a reversion to the Cold War."

Berlin to keep dialogue open

Putin also accused the US of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses in Eastern Europe as well as undermining international institutions and making the Middle East more unstable.

Speaking in Berlin on Monday, the day after the conference closed, Wilhelm added that Berlin did not agree with Putin's criticism of NATO's eastward expansion, but would keep up the dialogue with the Kremlin and continue to cooperate with Russia on international issues.

The other major incident to cause ripples was the decision of Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani to attend the conference after unexpectedly canceling his plans to attend and then, even more unexpectedly, reversing the reversal.

Face-to-face meeting before UN deadline

His attendance gave the German hosts and their European Union counterparts in the current nuclear negotiation process the opportunity to address the crisis over Iran's ambitions face to face.

The German Foreign Ministry had arranged talks with Larijani in Munich with an eye on the Feb. 21st UN Security Council deadline for Iran to stop enriching uranium for nuclear fuel or risk further international sanctions.

Before Larijani spoke to the conference, Merkel made it clear that the pressure remained on Iran to make the first move.

"If Iran does not comply with international demands, it risks falling deeper into isolation," Merkel said. "We are all determined to prevent the threat of an Iran with a military nuclear program. There are no ifs and buts here and no tricks."

Larijani told the Munich meeting that Tehran had the right to peaceful nuclear technology and that his country's uranium-enrichment activities were exclusively of a research and development nature.

He said "irrational preconditions" such as western demands that Iran must suspend uranium enrichment before coming to the negotiating table were an obstacle to solving the nuclear dispute.

Steinmeier: Possible Iran breakthrough

However, after meeting with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Sunday for the first time since talks broke down last September, Larijani said that "there is political will on both sides to have a negotiated settlement."

Steinmeier said Sunday that Larijani had indicated that Tehran could be ready to talk.

"(Larijani) signaled Iran has an interest in returning and continuing with the negotiating process," he told reporters. "Now what we have to do is look at the proposal that Iran is presenting and see if this paves the way back to the negotiating table."