REMARKS BY U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE
AND U.K. FOREIGN SECRETARY MARGARET BECKETT
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
July 10, 2006
Excerpts
. . .
QUESTION: A question for you both, please, on Iran. Last week
came and went without the answer you hoped for. It's not clear what
will happen this week or even by the time of the G-8. Do you sense
a sense of drift here? Is Iran essentially stringing you all along?
And at what point does their non-answer become an answer and what do
you do?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, first of all, we will have an opportunity to meet
with our colleagues in Paris on July 12th, at which time, as the G-8 statement
said, we will assess the situation. It is very clear that the Iranians have
before them a very beneficial proposal, a proposal that would be beneficial
for their energy needs, but a proposal that has wider-ranging implications
as well for trade and other matters. And it is really time to get an authoritative
answer to that proposal.
Nevertheless, when we were in Vienna, as Secretary Beckett was the host when
she noted that there are really two paths here, we hope that the Iranians choose
the path before them for cooperation. But of course, we can always return to
the other path, should we need to, and that path, as described by the Secretary
was, of course, the path to the Security Council. Now it's our great hope that
we are going to get an authoritative answer, but this is something that we're
going to take up and consider when we meet in Paris.
Margaret, do you want to --
SECRETARY BECKETT: Not really. I think all I can do is really to say how
much I agree with that. We have -- we went to a great deal of trouble. The
original proponents of these moves were the EU-3, but Secretary Rice and our
other colleagues were very keen to see that we had a stronger set of proposals
as possible. We worked on those proposals and we had actually pretty much the
basis of agreement when we met in New York, but we decided we wanted to put
further work in to deepen and strengthen the proposals that we could put to
Iran so that there was a real incentive for Iran to return to the path of negotiation.
And we all very much hope that they will do so, but as Secretary Rice says,
we will be meeting again in Paris, hopefully to discuss how we take those negotiations
forward.
QUESTION: Do you feel, though, that you're being strung along?
SECRETARY BECKETT: Well, let's see what comes in the next few days.
The Iranians have now had good time to look very carefully and in depth what
is, to be fair, a detailed set of proposals. They have said on a number of
occasions that there are, although not to us but they have been reported
as saying in the media that there are ambiguities, there are questions. Fine,
let's get those ambiguities and questions resolved so that we can move towards
negotiation.
. . .