May 8 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. officials said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's 18-page letter to President George W. Bush failed to deal with the fundamental nuclear dispute that is now under consideration by the United Nations Security Council.
``It doesn't appear to do anything to address the concerns of the international community'' over uranium enrichment, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters on Air Force One en route today to Florida with Bush. He said Bush has been briefed on the letter, which was conveyed through the Swiss Embassy because the U.S. and Iran have no formal relations.
In New York, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Associated Press the letter is not an opening to discuss Iran's nuclear program, which the U.S. describes as an attempt to build a nuclear weapon. Iran says it is exercising its right under a United Nations treaty to use nuclear power for electricity.
The message from Ahmadinejad ``isn't addressing the issues that we're dealing with in a concrete way,'' Rice said, according to AP. She said the letter dealt with history, philosophy and religion.
An Iranian official quoted by the state-run Fars News Agency earlier today characterized the letter from Ahmadinejad as an offer to address tensions.
``In this letter, while analyzing the world situation and pinpointing sources of problems, he has introduced new ways for getting out of the current, fragile international situation,'' government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham said. The spokesman didn't say whether the letter addresses Iran's nuclear program.
Crude oil fell below $70 a barrel in New York after news of the letter broke.
Lawmakers, Treaty
Members of Iran's parliament announced that they will push for withdrawal from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if the country's rights under the accord are not respected.
The U.K. and France, backed by the U.S., proposed a Security Council resolution on May 3 demanding Iran cease enriching uranium for use as a nuclear fuel, and said they would seek sanctions should the government in Tehran fail to comply. Foreign ministers from the five permanent member countries of the Security Council, plus Germany, are meeting today in New York to try to reach agreement on the resolution.
Ahmadinejad's letter will be made public once Bush receives it, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told the state- run Iranian Students News Agency.
Crude oil for June delivery fell 42 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $69.77 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest close since April 13.
China and Russia have said they will oppose the Security Council resolution, and envoys from the council's 10 elected member governments said on May 4 that their concerns made quick action unlikely.
Ahmadinejad's message to Bush echoes the Iranian president's remarks in a September speech to the UN General Assembly, in which he said the Iran wanted to reach out to other nations and to companies to create ``partnerships'' aimed at promoting confidence in the nuclear program.
Russian Proposal
Since then, Russia has offered a proposal aimed at breaking the international deadlock by processing Iran's nuclear fuel on Russian territory and shipping it back to Iran. The plan is ``still on the table,'' Hamid Reza Asefi, a spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, said on April 30, without elaborating.
The lawmakers from Iran's Majlis made their demands in a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that was signed by 160 of the 290 members of the parliament. In it, they said they would ask the government to avoid stricter UN nuclear inspections and leave the treaty if Annan and the UN Security Council don't ``fulfill their crucial duties in settling arguments in conciliatory ways.''
The treaty established the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency as a safeguards system with inspectors monitoring compliance. The accord has 187 signatories.
Iran yesterday rejected a call by Annan for the U.S. to hold direct talks about its nuclear program.
``The U.S. isn't prepared to have talks on a one-to-one equal basis,'' the Foreign Ministry's Asefi said yesterday. ``They are following the politics of threat. So under these conditions we see no necessity to start talks with them.''
