Following a Ministerial meeting in Berlin, on Thursday 30 March, the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, commented on Iran during a Press conference. Mr Straw said:

"I want to underline what Secretary Rice has said, is that nobody in the international community is trying to deny Iran its right to generate electricity by nuclear energy. That has never been the issue. The issue is whether Iran is also trying to use a huge and extravagant fuel cycle of enrichment and reprocessing of uranium to build a nuclear weapons capability. And given that 18 years of defiance of the international community and a repeated failure to meet the requirements of the Board of Governors of the IAEA, the onus is on Iran to show the international community that its programme is entirely for civil purposes and for no other."

"We have shown very great patience with Iran. They in turn have miscalculated. They thought the international community would be divided on this issue but truthfully it has become more and more united. This is a difficult issue. We have long discussions about it but this matter has now been discussed within the Security Council. We have issued a unanimous presidential statement which has some very clear messages to Iran. I hope Iran heeds those messages because if they fail to do so then, as the statement makes clear, the matter will then be considered by the Security Council further. Thank you very much."