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QUESTION: Talk of an Iran vote very shortly. Can you talk a bit about this? Is that what you hoped for?

MR. CASEY: Well, I understand that the Security Council is meeting now, and I think we anticipate that there will, as part of that discussion, be a vote on the latest UN Security Council sanctions resolution. We hope certainly to see a vote take place. We want to see that vote be unanimous. We have every reason to expect that the international community will continue to support the policies that have been outlined by the permanent five members plus Germany. Iran, of course, has an outstanding offer on the table to negotiate with us and to work out an arrangement that allows them to have a full civilian nuclear program while assuring us that they're not using that as a diversion or cover for building a nuclear weapon.

Unfortunately, because Iran has continued its defiance of the international community, including three UN Security Council resolutions as well as multiple resolutions from the IAEA Board of Governors, we are now faced again with ratcheting up the pressure and ratcheting up the sanctions. Let's remember, too, that this process is designed to help change the political calculations on the part of Iran's leadership, and we certainly hope that there will be reasonable leaders in Iran that will be willing to take advantage of an offer to negotiate rather than continuing defiance, and hopefully the increased pressure that's going to come from this resolution will lead them to that conclusion.

QUESTION: What is the -- sorry. Is the resolution as strong as you would have hoped?

MR. CASEY: Well, these are resolutions that are produced as a result of international negotiations. So we wish that we could have had the resolution sooner than we did, and we certainly didn't get everything that we might have hoped for had we been the sole people drafting that are responsible for it. But it is a good strong resolution. It's going to designate additional individuals and entities. It's going to tighten some of the existing sanctions that are there. And we believe it will, again, also show that the international community remains united in confronting the challenge posed by Iran's nuclear program.

QUESTION: And what do you think support from the new Russian president and also the report of high rise of oil prices in China and everything will continue to support?

MR. CASEY: Well, in terms of Russia's role, of course, the Russian elections have just occurred. The government that is in place now is the same government as yesterday. We've been very pleased to see that the Russians as well as the other members of the P-5+1 have been full participants in this process. We believe that the unity shown by the P-5+1 on this issue has been important. And we hope that with the passage of this additional resolution, it will encourage the Iranians and ultimately get them to come to the table.

In terms of the future role of Russia, well, it's an important country. It's one that will obviously have a very major role to play as we move forward, not only on this issue but a variety of others. And we do look forward to continuing to be able to work with the Russian Government on these kinds of concerns.

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