. . .
QUESTION: Speaking of unlimited patience, is the U.S. still going to drive for sanctions in the UN in light of Kofi Anna's mission to Tehran, which produced pretty much what you knew already that they're ready to negotiate, they say? But they will not accept enrichment as a -- suspension of enrichment as a precondition. The Europeans are talking about the need for diplomacy, the Russians are talking the need for -- do you have anybody on your side? I mean, can you move ahead in this kind of -- or do you have to wait a little while and rally --
MR. MCCORMACK: I think -- again --
QUESTION: -- rally folks.
MR. MCCORMACK: Again, Barry, as the President made clear that we're committed to diplomacy ourselves, but we're not going to negotiate. We -- meaning we, the United States and our partners, are not going to negotiate about negotiations. The conditions are very clear; they're simple. If the regime in Tehran meets those conditions, which are quite clear, straightforward, then there can be negotiations. And the only thing that they're being asked to do is to suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing-related activities. And in return they can begin negotiations to realize what it is that they said that they want to realize a peaceful nuclear energy program. The problem here isn't -- the question here is not Iran's rights under the NPT, although I know that they want to make it about Iran's rights under the NPT. They also want to make it about U.S.-Iran relations. It's not about that.
This is about the fact that there has been a fundamental breakdown in trust between Iran and the international community with respect to the Iranian nuclear program. And that breakdown in trust has come about because the Iranian regime has failed repeatedly over a course of years to answer the very simple questions put to it by international bodies like the International Atomic Energy Agency. And the world has come -- now come around to the view that their concerns are grave enough, with regard to that program that they are at the point of voting for sanctions against Iran.
Now there's going to be some work that's required in the Security Council. I would expect that that's going to be tough, intensive diplomacy over the course of the coming weeks. But Resolution 1696 makes very clear that if Iran failed to meet the deadline of October 31st in suspending it's enrichment-related activities that the Council was prepared for vote for Chapter 7, Article 41 sanctions. And that's where we find ourselves now.
QUESTION: All right. But it was said in early September if this situation doesn't improve the U.S. would move for sanctions.
MR. MCCORMACK: Right.
QUESTION: And of course that could take several weeks.
MR. MCCORMACK: Right.
QUESTION: Of hard work. Are you still inclined to move for sanctions?
MR. MCCORMACK: Yes, yes. Nick Burns is going to be leaving tomorrow for meetings on Thursday, September 7th with this P-5+1 counterparts. The subject of that meeting is to talk about the contents of the sanctions resolution.
I understand that Mr. Solana is expecting to meet with Mr. Larijani at some point perhaps later this week, maybe after that, to keep open channels of communication with the Iranians to perhaps clarify something in their -- some of the aspects of their response. Certainly that is a laudable goal. We would encourage -- we would encourage other members of the international community that might have some sway over Iran to engage them and to send the very clear message to them that they need to comply with the just demands of the international community.
Nicholas.
QUESTION: Sean, you have said that you would join your partners in talking to Iran only if they suspend enrichment and those other reprocessing activities, but the Europeans, the Russians, the Chinese are talking about actually negotiating with Iran before those activities are suspended. Do you have a problem with others talking to Iran about its program before enrichment is suspended, sanctions aside, at this point?
MR. MCCORMACK: Well, I don't think anybody is -- I don't think anybody is trying to alter the terms of the deal that was arrived at in Vienna and then again in Paris and then again in New York with respect to the requirements of Iran. This is not a negotiation about negotiations. I know that that's what the Iranians would like to do. They'd like to have their cake and eat it, too. They would like very much to negotiate ad infinitum while they continue progress along their nuclear weapons program. The world has said no, we've seen this movie before, we're not going to pay for it twice.
So again, in terms of keeping open channels of communication, that's fine. As I said, that's laudable. We are committed to diplomacy as President Bush has said. But Iran needs to meet the requirements that have been asked of them, demanded of them, required of them not by the United States but by the international community. It was a 15-0 vote in the Security Council, so there should be a no ambiguity here as to who is asking this. This is something that is being required now of the Iranian regime, and at the moment they are in breach of those international requirements.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) the recommendation of the foreign ministers of the EU, who met in Finland last week to continue talking to Iran before suspension takes place, as keeping the channel open between Solana and Larijani and nothing more than that?
MR. MCCORMACK: That's how we view it. We're continuing along the pathway to coming up with the sanctions resolution.
Yeah. Arshad.
QUESTION: Do you have any additional information about how much time Mr. Burns is going to be away, whether he has any other meetings besides the P-5+1 in Berlin who else he may talk to?
MR. MCCORMACK: I'll check for you, Arshad. I don't -- at the moment I don't have that information with me. But he's -- the purpose of his going -- traveling to Berlin is for these meetings, yes.
Rosen.
QUESTION: I mean, you can wave the flag of 1696 and keep waving it. But you know you have a series of discouraging comments from the people who are supposed to help you uphold 1696 including most recently Wen Jiabao today telling Reuters that sanctions could be counterproductive. So I guess the question following on my colleagues' is, why are you optimistic that 1696 will be upheld? The winds don't seem to be blowing in that direction.
MR. MCCORMACK: Again, James, I would expect that this will probably be tough, intensive diplomacy like I said. But the fact of the matter is the P-5+1 have an agreement. They made a deal. We would expect everybody -- all members of that group to live up to the agreement as well as members of the Security Council who made it very clear that if the Iranians don't comply with this, then we're headed down the pathway of greater isolation for the Iranian people, which is not something we desire. We don't desire that. We don't want that. But this is something that the Iranian regime is bringing down upon the Iranian people, and it would really be a shame because it is a great culture, it's a great people, and it would be a shame to see this regime further isolate the Iranian people from the rest of the world. By all reports, that's not what the Iranian people want. They want greater engagement with the rest of the world.
QUESTION: If there was such a solid agreement, what is it that you expect will be the tough and intensive and difficult part in the next few weeks?
MR. MCCORMACK: Well, that's the nature of these negotiations, James. We've all see Security Council resolution discussions. It's just the -- it's the nature of multilateral diplomacy. And anytime you're talking about a serious matter like imposing sanctions, we would expect -- we fully expect -- that other countries take that as a serious matter. So as a result, you have a lot of discussion, a lot of diplomacy, and we've all seen this before on the Iran issue, on a variety of different issues.
QUESTION: Maybe I'm wrong, but don't you need the Solana-Larijani event/meeting to guide the Burns, et al, planning session?
MR. MCCORMACK: No.
QUESTION: If you know what I mean?
MR. MCCORMACK: No, I don't think so.
QUESTION: No?
MR. MCCORMACK: No.
QUESTION: I thought one would have to come before the other to clarify --
MR. MCCORMACK: No, because you notice it's a binary issue at this point; it's either yes or no in terms of the have the Iranians -- have the Iranians met the conditions. Have they stated that they're going to meet the obligations? No, they haven't. Can you have further discussions with -- between Larijani and Solana? Maybe the Iranians want to communicate something different than they have previously. Absolutely. But for the moment, Barry, we have an answer that allows us, meaning we and the P-5+1 and the Security Council, to start to go down that pathway of sanctions.
QUESTION: New topic?
MR. MCCORMACK: Anything else?
QUESTION: Guess not.
MR. MCCORMACK: I would guess not. Yes.
QUESTION: Former President Khatami said this weekend that he supports a two-state solution in Middle East, which is a pretty open way to recognize the right of Israel to exist. And at the same time, President Ahmadi-Nejad said that -- repeated that the Holocaust was very much exaggerated.
MR. MCCORMACK: Right.
QUESTION: So do you think you can use the gap between these two people to obtain a suspension of the enrichment?
MR. MCCORMACK: Well, a few things, Sylvie. First of all, President Khatami is here on a private visit. He is not here at the invitation of the United States Government. He is here at the invitation of the United Nations and then some private United States organizations. Private U.S. citizens wanted to have this interaction with him.
As for President Ahmadi-Nejad, sadly we have come to expect these kind of comments from him and it's just another sad repetition of a ugly, ugly myth that he is trying to perpetuate.
One other thing about President Khatami. He has in fact said this previously and he in fact said it while he was president of Iran, that while Iran continued to supply money, assistance to Palestinian rejectionist groups, namely Palestinian Islamic Jihad. So those are certainly laudable thoughts, but the reality is that Iran has been and continues to be a state sponsor of terror.
Now, as far as the divergence of opinion within the Iranian political body, I'll leave that for others to try to analyze. Certainly we would hope that President Khatami would carry when he returns back to Iran certainly help the Iranian people understand that the American people don't wish to be isolated from the Iranian people.
QUESTION: Is that why you offered him -- is that why you granted him a visa? Sorry, sorry.
MR. MCCORMACK: I can get to that. We have no change in official U.S. Government policy with regard to government-to-government contacts between the government of the United States and the government of Iran. Simply, however, we encourage private contact between the Iranian nation and the American people. Those contacts, we believe, are healthy. So, again, I'll leave it to others to try to define where along the political spectrum these individuals may lie. But we ourselves have no desire to be isolated from the Iranian people.
QUESTION: Well, there's some issue of a visa because he has the potential to carry back this message. Is that why you offered him a visa? I mean, what do you think of the trip that he's making here? And it doesn't seem as if any U.S. officials are -- he's not a member of the government anymore, but it still doesn't seem like any officials have any appetite to meet with him or anything like that. Why not if he's -- if he can carry this message back? What's the --
MR. MCCORMACK: He doesn't need to meet with U.S. Government officials to convey the sense that he was welcomed by these private American organizations. You know, look, there are differences of opinion with regard to granting of this visa. Fully understand that and fully understand the arguments on both sides of the issue. We ourselves made the decision. We've talked about the reasons for the decision, but he is not here at the invitation of the U.S. Government but at the invitation of these private groups.
Yeah, Nicholas.
QUESTION: Earlier you spoke of the Iranian culture, the Iranian people. Something new that the President apparently has decided or called for is sort of a campaign targeting more liberal academics and other opinion leaders in Iran because of their, I guess, pro-Western views on certain things. Do you have anything to say on that in terms of the links between the government and academia?
MR. MCCORMACK: Before offering a specific comment on that, Nicholas, I have seen the news reports. I'd like to check them out for myself.
Certainly, if in fact true it would be a sad commentary on the state of freedom of speech in Iran. We already know what that's like. We already know that certainly the Iranian regime flunks the town square test as outlined by Natan Sharansky.
You can -- just looking at the records since President Ahmadi-Nejad has taken office, it is a distressing record of further clamping down on individual rights and individual freedoms. And if true, this is just another sad commentary about the state of freedom in Iran. It's sad for the Iranian people.
QUESTION: Following on from that, if, you know, one might be looking out there as a stirring of a cultural revolution, then is that going to make the 17 million odd dollars America has invested in Iranian opposition groups more harming than useful?
MR. MCCORMACK: Well, we have a variety of open programs to try to encourage information flow to the Iranian people because I think that if you talk to Iran experts, I think they will make it very clear that competing points of view sort of penetrating the Iranian media is something that's really not very commonplace. It's very difficult for the Iranian people to get a wide variety of information about what is really happening in the world.
One example is I would be very suspect if the Iranian people truly understood the offer that was put before the Iranian regime about the potential benefits that might be derived from negotiations on the nuclear issue, so we have a number of programs in that regard. We have also -- are going to try to work on educational exchanges and we're also working on trying to do a better job in terms of understanding what is going on inside of Iran. We have allocated more resources here in the State Department so that people on a daily basis can better understand what is going on inside Iran.
As for -- you had a question -- you had the question about some specific groups, if you have any other further details I'd be happy to look into that for you.
George.
QUESTION: A follow-up on the same thing. You talked about the desirability of cultural exchanges with the Iranians.
MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah.
QUESTION: Yet you just said that you're working on educational exchanges.
MR. MCCORMACK: Right.
QUESTION: Could you perhaps find out the extent of cultural exchanges if there have been. Are there people-to-people exchanges with Iran going on now and if so could we have some idea of the magnitude of these exchanges?
MR. MCCORMACK: Sure. I'll try to get you some ways to quantify that, George.
QUESTION: Please, thank you.
MR. MCCORMACK: Sure. Elise.
QUESTION: Can we move on?
MR. MCCORMACK: I don't know. Is there anything else on Iran?
QUESTION: On the universities. Does this strike you as an attempt by Ahmadi-Nejad to perhaps distract the people of Iran from other potential internal problems or failures -- domestic failures of his regime in one way or another?
MR. MCCORMACK: James, the decision making -- first of all, I can't confirm the reports for you. I'd really like to look into them myself before I provide a detailed response. But, you know, as for the decision-making processes of the Iranian regime, that is -- they are relatively opaque to us. I couldn't tell you why, James.
I mean, your point about the fact there is domestic politics in Iran is taken. I take that point. But certainly their ability to express different points of view is clearly very, very restrictive.
QUESTION: I just wonder if you are able to assess whether his regime is failing in terms of providing certain services or the economy or other things that are measurable and that U.S. analysts can assess?
MR. MCCORMACK: I don't have anything to share with you at the moment, James
. . .