U.S., Iran likely to meet one-on-one

U.S negotiators hope to sit down with Iranian diplomats for an unexpected, one-on-one meeting this Thursday, officials announced today.

This opportunity for direct talks -- perhaps the White House's most substantial diplomatic gesture toward Iran since it severed ties with the country three decades ago -- arrives days after Iran conducted a long-range missile test, to the dismay of American and other world leaders.

"We are committed to meaningful negotiations to resolve what are growing international concerns about Iran's nuclear problem," Undersecretary of State William J. Burns told The Washington Post. Burns will head up Thursday's discussion with Iranian officials.

"This cannot be an open-ended process, more talks for the sake of talks," he added. "We need to see practical steps and measurable results and we need to see them starting quickly."

Thursday's meeting arrives at a time when tensions between the United States and Iran are most tenuous. The revelation on Saturday that Iran had constructed a secret uranium facility in the city of Qom prompted U.S lawmakers to threaten a new round of sanctions against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Those calls became more vocal and frequent on Monday, after Iranian leaders authorized a series of missile tests that the White House later labeled as "provocative."

Iran had already planned to sit down with world leaders on Thursday for a meeting of the P5+1 -- a coalition of British, Chinese, French, German, Russian and U.S. negotiators. But it was unclear until Wednesday that U.S. officials would meet one-on-one with Iranian leaders between group sessions.