July 13, 2006

TIMES HUMOR: BOROWITZ REPORT

State Department taking ‘close look’ at Iranian offer

In what some diplomats believe could be the long hoped-for break in the United States’ nuclear stalemate with Iran, Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinezhad today offered to abandon his nation's nuclear program in exchange for North Korea’s nuclear program.

Mr. Ahmadinezhad made the surprise announcement in an interview today on the al-Jazeera network’s popular news program, “The Situation Cave.”

“My country is fully prepared to dismantle our peaceful nuclear program, once and for all,” Mr. Ahmadinezhad. “In compensation for doing so, we would like to have North Korea’s highly warlike nuclear program transferred to Iran at once.”

There was no official response from the U.S. State Department to Mr. Ahmadinezhad’s surprise offer, but diplomatic insiders said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was taking a “close look” at the proposal.

But the Iranian offer got an unequivocal thumbs up from North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il, who said that he would “happily” transfer his nuclear program to Iran in exchange for the United States' nuclear program.

At the White House, spokesperson Tony Snow scheduled a special press briefing to call President Kim’s proposal a “deal-breaker” and used the occasion to clarify the White House’s position on the nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.

“Regarding Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programs, we will continue to pursue the same policy we have been pursuing,” Mr. Snow said. “And by that I mean, doing nothing.”

Elsewhere, Discovery astronauts made repairs on the International Space Station during a seven-hour spacewalk, six hours of which were spent on hold with a tech support representative in Bangalore.

For more from Andy Borowitz go to www.borowitzreport.com. Andy Borowitz is a nationally syndicated humor columnist whose work can be found in Newsweek and other publications.