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QUESTION: Can we talk about the London meeting on Iran?

MR. MCCORMACK: Sure.

QUESTION: The meeting is now over. I'm sure you've seen the FCO very brief statement calling it productive. Can you shed any further light on what it produced, if anything, beyond an agreement to meet again and talk more about this topic?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, they did -- I just talked to Nick Burns, who is our Under Secretary for Political Affairs. He attended the meeting on our behalf. And he said it was really one of the best meetings of this type that we have had in about two years, that it was conducted in a very good, positive, constructive atmosphere. They feel like -- feel as though that they accomplished quite a bit. They will meet again via telephone on Thursday, at which time they hope to be able to hammer out the elements of a UN sanctions resolution.

Coming out of this meeting, they have agreed on a -- on the fact that they will go forward with a UN sanctions resolution. They have also reaffirmed their commitment to make it clear to the Iranian Government that the pathway to negotiation is also open to them. Again, emphasizing the fact that there are two pathways for the Iranian regime. We hope that they take that pathway of negotiation. There is an offer out on the table. Secretary Rice has reiterated that over the past couple of days in some very strong statements that she has made.

But we are equally committed to sending the message to the Iranian Government, should they choose not to proceed down that pathway, then there will be consequences and those consequences will be diplomatic isolation from the rest of the world. They've already had a taste of that, and this last resolution that was passed 15-0 has knocked them off balance, I think. You have seen a debate erupt in Iran that you had not previously seen before and there is a real discussion in Iran right now whether or not the opportunity costs of continuing down their current pathway are really worth it, because there are real costs to them. And the Iranian people are going to have to make that judgment, as do they want to proceed down this pathway of isolation or do they want to proceed down the pathway of greater cooperation and contact with the outside world.

QUESTION: You said that they agreed that they will go forward on a sanctions resolution.

MR. MCCORMACK: Yes.

QUESTION: You don't mean to imply by that that there's actually agreement that there will be a resolution, because the devil is always in the details. I mean, it's not like -- is there --

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, obviously you have -- you have to have a vote, put it to the vote. But the P-5+1 have agreed that they are going to move forward with a resolution.

QUESTION: Now I'm sorry, and I don't mean to try to split hairs, but I'm really trying to understand what that means. I mean, if you don't have an agreement on -- you're not saying they've agreed that there will be a resolution no matter what; is that what you're saying?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, short of an actual vote, yes, their intention is to have a resolution. Yes.

QUESTION: And this morning you suggested to some of us that you might be satisfied by something other than a resolution. You said a resolution or other incremental steps. Why -- were you trying to suggest by that that something less than a resolution, other than a resolution is acceptable?

MR. MCCORMACK: No, no.

QUESTION: And what kind of steps do the P-5+1 agreed on?

MR. MCCORMACK: What other elements in --

QUESTION: Yes.

MR. MCCORMACK: -- the resolution? Well, we're going to negotiate those in private and at some point, I'm sure that we will make them publicly known. But until that point, we haven't finished the discussions on that yet.

QUESTION: So if I understood well, you agreed to have a new resolution, but you didn't agree on what will be the resolution?

MR. MCCORMACK: We've agreed on a couple of things: 1) that we're going to go for a UN Security Council resolution and 2) that we are going to reaffirm to the Iranians that there is a negotiating track that is open to them. The political directors will convene again via conference call on Thursday, at which point they will have a further discussion about what elements would be included in a Security Council resolution and that -- we hope at that point that they can actually come to agreement on the elements of the resolution and then you also -- then you would proceed from that point in finishing up negotiations on the actual text of the resolution.

QUESTION: Okay. Did the P-5+1 agree on having additional steps?

MR. MCCORMACK: What additional steps? What --

QUESTION: Well, additional measures to -- incremental measures.

MR. MCCORMACK: Yes. That's why you would have another resolution.

QUESTION: Yeah, but if it's a resolution and with no new sanction or no new
measure --

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, presumably, there would be something new in it if you have another resolution.

QUESTION: Can you give us a sense if you'll be going back --

MR. MCCORMACK: Not necessarily.

QUESTION: No, not necessarily -- yeah, exactly. Okay.

QUESTION: But didn't you have an initial kind of menu of resolute -- of elements that you wanted, particularly United States supports to table, which was then subsequently watered down? Will you be revisiting that initial list?

MR. MCCORMACK: Okay. We're certainly going to draw upon that list. I can't tell you at this point what all the elements will be. That remains for further discussion. As we said, we hope we can have that wrapped up by Thursday, but again, we all know how multilateral negotiations go, but I want to emphasize this was a very good meeting today. Nick told me it was one of the best that we have had of this kind in the past couple years. And I think it really underscores the fact that the international system is going to reply to Iran's continuing to thumb its nose at the international system. They just can't continue with this kind of behavior on an issue of this fundamental seriousness to the international system.

QUESTION: But you say you have much more confidence in this. You sound so much more optimistic than you did before Christmas. Do you have much more confidence in the substance of this resolution? Will this be more the kind of thing that the U.S. wants to see?

MR. MCCORMACK: Look, we -- let's rewind back to December. We were saying all -- we were saying all along that the resolution that is going to emerge and that did emerge from the Security Council wasn't going to be the one that we would have drafted ourselves. But in looking back at that resolution, it has actually been quite effective. The fact that it was a 15-0 resolution, the fact that it was a Chapter 7 resolution, signaled to not only the Iranians but the international system and the private sector of the international system that this was a quite serious moment for Iran and that it had some fundamental choices that it needed to make.

And the result has been that the business community has made certain decisions about reputational risk and risk involving Iran, and they've made those decisions on their own based on Iran's standing in the international community. I think sometimes we forget and maybe we lost sight of the fact that a Chapter 7 resolution is a very strong signal to players in the international system. But a country now stands outside, in terms of its behavior, the international consensus; and Iran, as a result of that resolution, found itself in a very exclusive club, not one that people really want to get into, but a very exclusive club.

And so we are -- we and the P-5+1 think that it turned out to be a very good and very effective resolution. Now we're going to add to it. We're going to add to it because Iran has decided that it's going to continue to defy the international community -- not just the United States, but the entire world in the form of Security Council resolutions and the IAEA Board of Governors. We would hope that they choose a different path. That pathway is open to them. But in the meantime, we are going to continue down the road of a Security -- another Security Council resolution.

QUESTION: Did Nick and his counterparts affirm that they want to pursue a Chapter 7 resolution this time around? And also would you say, since Nick has said this is one of the best meetings they've had, that the Russians have come closer to the views of the Europeans and the United States?

MR. MCCORMACK: I'll let the individual parties characterize their interactions within the group. In terms of the elements of the resolution, we'll let that unfold over the next few days here. I would expect that, as we said, it's going to be an incremental step in the diplomacy that's proportionate to the kind of response that Iran has given the rest of the world.

QUESTION: Well, Iran has just flatly, utterly, completely, unequivocally, you know, rejected what you wanted. That wasn't incremental. I mean, that was just flat out, no, we're not going to do what you want to do.

MR. MCCORMACK: That's a lot of adverbs in one sentence.

QUESTION: I thought so, too, but it seemed to me to be justified.

MR. MCCORMACK: You feel very strongly about that.

QUESTION: But -- no, but they've rejected what you wanted, so why respond incrementally? Why not respond with more? You guys wanted more in the original draft that you were talking about last autumn and that were gradually, you know, negotiated to have less and less of the things that you wanted into them. Why don't you try for more than just incremental steps? Is that just all you think you can get at this point?

MR. MCCORMACK: No, we think that -- again, we rewound the clock a little bit and I admitted at the time that this wasn't -- the first resolution, at the time we were drafting it, we acknowledged wasn't all that we had -- would have hoped that it would have been. But the fact of the matter is that it has been a very effective resolution, and I think even more effective than we might have originally thought when we signed onto it. We, at the time, we said that this is a good resolution, it's a Chapter 7 resolution, but it has been even more effective than we would have thought at the time.

So again, Iran keeps taking steps -- again, they do continue to thumb their nose at the international community. But they are taking incremental steps along the pathway to perfecting enrichment technology and, we would argue, along the pathway to developing a nuclear weapon. And so we are going to -- we have said all along that we are going to have a proportionate, diplomatic response if they continue to defy the international system. We believe -- and again, we haven't come to full agreement on the elements of this resolution, but we believe that whatever it is that we come up with in terms of a resolution will have a proportionate effect on Iran given its continued defiance of the international system.

QUESTION: And proportionate to what?

MR. MCCORMACK: Proportionate to the actions that it has -- it is taking, and that we have said we are going to gradually increase the pressure on Iran. That has been -- that's been the operating concept behind our diplomacy, really, for the past couple of years. And I think that that's what you see playing out right now.

QUESTION: So does it mean that we don't have to expect a very strong resolution, the next one, because it will be proportionate?

MR. MCCORMACK: Again, I think that you will see a strong resolution come out that is incremental in nature. And I'm just -- I'm trying to make the point to you that the -- while in the language of diplomacy we may call these incremental, that we may call them gradual increases in pressure, the real world effect of these is actually quite significant on the Iranian regime. I think we have seen that demonstrated over the past several months in the wake of the passage of the last resolution.

So don't discount the effect of these resolutions within the international system. It's important to remember that Iran is not a state that exists in isolation from the international system. Its people want interaction with the rest of the world and, frankly, we would like nothing better than to encourage that interaction between the Iranian people and the rest of the world, including with the United States.

So these resolutions have an effect of isolating Iran from the rest of the world, and that is not something that the Iranian people want. Or it's certainly not something that this government, this Iranian Government, would want. It understands it has -- while many of its behaviors are outside the international consensus of acceptable norms, it still has to exist and depends in some respects on the international system.

Yes.

QUESTION: Does this mean now that you believe that the participants of this meeting, including Russia, are now open to increasing sanctions on Iran?

MR. MCCORMACK: Again, let's take this step by step. They agreed at this political directors meeting that we were going to go for another Security Council resolution, also reaffirmed that there is a negotiating pathway. There are going to be elements in that resolution that have yet to be agreed and we'll talk a little bit about those in the coming days and weeks.

Anything else on Iran? Yeah.

QUESTION: Did United States ask Turkey to talk to Iran about its nuclear program? What are the U.S. expectations from Turkey on this issue?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, what we would hope as a neighbor of Iran that Turkey would encourage the Iranian regime to take seriously the requirements of the international system and make clear to them that there is another pathway for them. There is another pathway where they can realize discussions on a whole host of subjects about which they have expressed an interest to have discussions and negotiations. We can do that. We can do that within the P-5+1 mechanism that has been laid out for them and it's a very simple entry requirement. It's been laid out for them. It's not just ours. It's the same requirement as the IAEA Board of Governors has laid out, that the P-5+1 has laid out. So we would encourage that message to be sent to the Iranians.

And on the other side, if they choose not to cooperate, then they are going to find themselves more and more isolated from the rest of the world.

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