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QUESTION: Did you see anything positive coming out of the Solana-Larijani meetings yesterday? There seemed to be some somewhat conflicting accounts of their own afterward as to whether they made any progress.

SECRETARY RICE: I've not had a chance to talk with Javier. I'm sure that I will sometime today or tomorrow. I note that they're going to meet again in two weeks and I note that, as you said, there have been some conflicting reports. But I think the only question is: Are we getting to a point at which the Iranians are prepared to suspend so that negotiations can begin? But I hope they were constructive. I don't see any evidence of it, but I frankly haven't had a chance to talk to Javier since the talks concluded.

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QUESTION: Madame Secretary, do you think that there's some wiggle room with Iran? There are lots of discussions out there on terms of partial suspension, you know, freeze for freeze, suspension for suspension, and there are a lot of different terms out there. What do you see as sort of your wiggle room in terms of negotiating with Iran?

SECRETARY RICE: Where we've been flexible is on how we get to suspension, agreeing, for instance, that it was perfectly logical for Solana to continue his talks to try to get to suspension. We have not been opposed to discussions between our European allies and the Iranians prior to suspension to see if you can get to suspension. So where we have been flexible is on myriad ways that a consultation process could lead the Iranians to a position where they could suspend.

What we can't do is to have negotiations take place while the Iranians continue to perfect their nuclear technology and use those negotiations as cover to keep UN activity at bay, to keep the international community off balance as to what is going on. That's what we can't accept.

The other issue will be, once we're in negotiations, what kind of nuclear program -- civil nuclear program -- can Iran establish that would be acceptable to the international community and that would meet Iran's needs. We've made very clear that the enrichment and reprocessing activities cannot be on Iranian territory, but there is a lot of room for discussing how Iran could have a civil nuclear program. So I would say the flexibility after negotiations is to think about what kind of civil nuclear program Iran could have that does not involve the fuel cycle. And the flexibility before is to be very flexible on what means of consultation you use to get to suspension as long as it doesn't involve the United States. Because given, frankly, the extraordinary nature of the offer that we've made to change 27 years of our policy, I think that that really should only happen once we've gotten to a place that we know negotiations are really going to lead some place.

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QUESTION: Just a follow-up, Madame Secretary, on what you said about Iran. The point about the United States opposing any enrichment or reprocessing on Iranian territory -- is that a fixed red line? Because as you know, there have been discussions about an international consortium, other ways of an inspection-type regime that would -- even if it were on Iranian territory, it might be able to ensure that it was not misused.

SECRETARY RICE: The issue is that any Iranian civil nuclear program really can't have the fuel cycle attached to it or the ability to have access to it and perfect that technology. That's really the issue. I think if you look back, for instance, on some of the consortium proposals that had been made -- for instance, the Russian consortium proposal had the technical work being done on Russian territory with some of the scientific and other work on Iranian territory and financial-shared responsibilities. I think there are many, many different ways to think about this. But we aren't going to be able to do that until we're in negotiations, and we're not going to be able to do that until the Iranians follow the UN guidelines.

But I think what kind of civil nuclear program Iran might have is something that we'd be interested in hearing from the Iranians about. It may well be that even in these pre-consultation -- or these consultations prior to negotiations, Solana will get some idea of that because nobody wants to enter in negotiations even that would be fruitless. But the real question is not having Iran have access to the fuel cycle.

QUESTION: Thank you.