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QUESTION: The India-Iran Joint Commission meeting took place on Thursday and Friday. And later the Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, she really was very critical of the U.S. unilateral sanctions. And she said that, to quote, "Our energy security and our attempts to meet our development needs of our people" are going to be affected. What is your comment on that?

MR. CROWLEY: I'm not familiar with those particular comments. Every country obviously pursues its own self-interest of its citizens. We understand that. By the same token, all countries have international obligations to fully respect and to heed the sanctions that were passed by the Security Council last month. We are taking our own steps to fully implement those sanctions and to take additional steps within our own laws. And we would expect all countries to respect and commit themselves to undertake and to enforce the sanctions that have been passed by the UN Security Council.

QUESTION: A follow-up?

QUESTION: She mentioned - a follow-up. She mentioned that these are unilateral sanctions of the U.S. and they are going to affect the business of Indian companies in Iran.

MR. CROWLEY: Well, as we've said, the - we have ongoing concerns about the nature of Iran's nuclear program. There are many questions that we have that have gone unanswered. You even have today concerns expressed by President Medvedev regarding his concerns, which we share, about Iran continuing to move closer to having a breakout nuclear capability. It is up to Iran to come forward and engage the IAEA and the international community constructively. Iran has failed to do that.

So under these circumstances, from our standpoint and what we have made clear in our conversations with many countries, is that this cannot be a situation of business as usual. This is about the future of the world. This is about the danger of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, which will affect countries outside of the region, including India. So everyone has a responsibility to do what each country can to convince Iran to change its present course. I'll leave it to India to describe what steps it is going to take.

We are moving forward both to implement international sanctions and to evaluate how we can take additional national measures that puts pressure on the Iranian Government to come forward and engage constructively.

QUESTION: On President Medvedev, do you - so you share his concerns that Iran is very close to having the potential to make a nuclear bomb? I mean, it sounds like he thinks that they've - they're close to crossing the threshold.

MR. CROWLEY: Well, we continue to see that as Iran attempts to perfect the technologies involved in enrichment, it gets closer to that point at which the leap from a civilian program to a military program is narrowed. We have definite concerns that if this trajectory continues, that Iran will at some point approach that moment - that tipping point, if you will - where it has a de facto military capability. We are doing everything in our power to delay and deter that moment from occurring. That's why today, at this point, what we need is international resolve. All countries have a special obligation to do everything that they can to convince Iran to move in a different direction.

Lalit.

QUESTION: Both India and Pakistan are moving ahead with Iran to have a gas pipeline - Iran, Pakistan, India gas pipeline. Are you talking to either India and Pakistan, both countries, on this issue? Do you have - I know you have been opposing this gas pipeline for a long time.

MR. CROWLEY: I'll take that question as to whether we have concerns about that particular project.

QUESTION: Thank you.

QUESTION: Another one, to go back to - can we go back to President Medvedev's comments --

MR. CROWLEY: Sure.

QUESTION: -- just to close out with that?

MR. CROWLEY: Sure.

QUESTION: Were you pleased that he made this public statement which is being reported as among the sort of hardest comments of a senior Russian official about Iran's potential nuclear capability? And would you say that it suggests that the Russians are growing even closer to your perspective on Iran?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, Arshad, I would go back not only to the meeting that the - President Obama and President Medvedev had last fall at the UN in New York where their comments were very similar. Russia clearly reached consensus within the Security Council in both supporting, crafting, and passing the recent sanctions resolution. So I don't think that there has been a great deal of daylight between our position and the Russian position. And they have, in fact, converged in the past several months. We have the same concern about the threat that an unchecked Iranian program poses to the region. Russia has a special concern because it is - it sits directly adjacent to that neighborhood.

So I think this is just indicative of the cooperation that - and shared perspective that the United States and Russia have reached on this issue based on the extensive dialogue that the presidents have had, the secretaries of state and foreign minister have had, defense officials have had over many, many months.

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