. . .

QUESTION: Iranian Foreign Minister Motaki said yesterday at the UN that they are going August. On the other hand, the P+1 they said that we need your answer before G-8 summit.

MR. ERELI: Right.

QUESTION: With this conflict, what you are going to do?

MR. ERELI: Well, we've seen statements like this before. I will simply repeat what the United States, as well as the other members of the P-5+1 consensus have already made clear mostly recently in the G-8 communiqué issued in Moscow yesterday, which is that we expect an answer from -- a substantive and considered response from the Iranians on July 5th.

QUESTION: What is the next occasion, the next venue, for the group -- a group, not necessarily a mechanical group -- to get together and --

MR. ERELI: As I said yesterday, the plan is for Larijani and Solana to meet on July 5th and for the P-5+1 foreign ministers to meet on July 12th.

QUESTION: Do you have any indication where they're going to meet yet?

MR. ERELI: I don't have, you know, details on that at this point.

QUESTION: The Iranians have indicated they have --

MR. ERELI: I'm sorry.

QUESTION: No, the P-5+1.

MR. ERELI: Yeah.

QUESTION: This is not the G-8 group.

MR. ERELI: No. P-5+1.

QUESTION: And July 12th.

MR. ERELI: Yes.

QUESTION: The Iranians have indicated they have further questions that they want to ask Mr. Solana on July 5th at that meeting. So do you think it's realistic to expect that they will -- that Larijani himself, without going back and discussing things more, would actually be able to give a response?

MR. ERELI: Again, I'd refer you to the G-8 communiqué for specifically what we're looking for. I think we've made it clear that we believe that they've had a reasonable period to look at this proposal and we think that it's -- that the time has come for a response and we look forward to that on July 5th.

QUESTION: To your knowledge, have they gotten back to Mr. Solana in the meantime and asked any questions by phone or anything like that?

MR. ERELI: I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I don't have details that I can report to you about communications between Mr. Larijani and Mr. Solana. I think that the meeting on July 5th is where they will present where they are at the present time.

QUESTION: But you can't even say if there's been any communication?

MR. ERELI: I just -- I don't have that information.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Okay. Are there any plans between July 5th and July 12th for political directors to meet? I mean --

MR. ERELI: I'll check and see if there are any plans to have meetings between July 5th and July 12th.

QUESTION: You would assume that before the ministers meeting that once they -- if they're taking that time to assess. Okay.

QUESTION: Along the same lines, I mean, this is so important to you all, so there are two things that --

MR. ERELI: And then they may do it by phone.

QUESTION: Yeah.

QUESTION: Well, that's right. That's the question. Do you know of anything in the works so far as --

MR. ERELI: I'll put it this way, Barry, that first of all --

QUESTION: It's a long weekend.

MR. ERELI: First of all, the foreign ministers were all together yesterday. So it's not as if the sort of trail has gone cold on this.

QUESTION: No, and it's not as if they convinced Iran of anything.

MR. ERELI: Second of all, Under Secretary Burns, Under Secretary Joseph, the Secretary, on any given day, in contact with a number of their P-5+1 counterparts. So I would expect the sort of the pace of those contacts to, at a minimum, continue. Whether it's in the form of a conference call or whether it's in the form of a meeting somewhere, I wouldn't want to say. I don't know. But I think that you can be sure that consultation will be continued, close, ongoing and fully adequate to take meaningful action on July 12th.

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