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QUESTION: Has the Secretary had any conversations about the Berlin meeting and how's the resolution shaping up?

MR. MCCORMACK: I have to be -- bear with me. Let me check my list here. She spoke on Wednesday with Foreign Minister Steinmeier, she spoke today with EU High Rep Solana but that was not on Berlin, and I think those would be the only things that you might even think were tangentially related to Berlin.

In terms of this issue, you know, no change. We're working away at it. We don't yet have agreement on the elements. We're going (inaudible) a resolution, but we're pushing forward on it and we're optimistic that we will eventually be able to get a resolution. We would have wished that we had had one by now, but that's multilateral diplomacy for you.

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QUESTION: Is Solana going to attend the P5+1?

MR. MCCORMACK: I believe so. All the ministers are going to be attending and he usually does attend those, but check with his office.

QUESTION: (inaudible)

MR. MCCORMACK: He typically does, yeah.

QUESTION: Are you hopeful that you'll come up with a resolution on Tuesday or do you think that it might take a little longer?

MR. MCCORMACK: Might take a little longer, might take a little longer. As I've been talking about the meeting is divided essentially into two parts, and this doesn't mean it's going to be 50/50 in terms of the time spent, but talking about the resolution, the elements of it as well as what happens afterwards once you get a resolution, what's the diplomatic way forward. And having a free-flowing open discussion, you might term it a brainstorming session, about what are the diplomatic pathways available to us so that we can pressure the Iranian regime to make a different set of choices regarding its behavior in the international system. That's the whole object of the exercise here.

QUESTION: And in terms of what happens afterwards, are you looking at whether the Solana channel will still be useful and whether it's going to be useful to continue with -- is it Jalili? I'm sorry, I've forgotten.

MR. MCCORMACK: Jalili, yes. I haven't heard --

QUESTION: Since Larijani has gone or --

MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah, I haven't heard any discussion saying we should put that channel into the deep freeze. It's still a channel of communication with the Iranian regime in which Mr. Solana can speak on behalf of the P5+1 directly. That is useful. I think it's always very useful to have these kinds of channels of communication that are available if one or either side wants to avail itself channel.

QUESTION: But are you looking at any new sort of structures that could go into place to deal with Iran or -- I mean, you've only got a year left in office --

MR. MCCORMACK: Right. Well, that's not driving anything. I mean, what we want to do is to try, you know -- if you're a policymaker you solve -- you're tasked with trying to solve the problem and to act in the interest of your country and your foreign policy and national security interest, and in this case, acting in concert with a number of other friends and allies who have a similar set of interests. So what we want to do is try to solve the problem. At the very least, what you want to do is leave it in a better situation than you originally received the issue or took on the issue.

So the timing in terms of how long you have in the Administration is really irrelevant. You want to do the right thing and that's what the Secretary's going to do up until her last day here at the Department.

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