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QUESTION: About Iran, we have now the answer of the Iranians. It was given just before the beginning of this briefing so you may not have seen it. Ali Larijani just said in Brussels that the offer is acceptable but he said also that the Iranians want to negotiate the suspension of enrichment. Is the suspension of enrichment negotiable?
MR. MCCORMACK: Well, a couple of things. One, we're not going to offer a formal assessment of what the Iranians have told Mr. Solana in their meeting. We're going to wait for Mr. Solana to be able to provide a comprehensive briefing to the P5+1 foreign ministers in Paris tomorrow. Secretary Rice leaves tonight for Paris. And then the foreign ministers will have a discussion along with Mr. Solana about what the response of the P5+1 will be.
The P5+1 has made it very clear repeatedly all along the line that the conditions laid out for the Iranian Government are firm: that they have to suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing-related activity. Those aren't just the conditions that were formulated by the P5+1, but those were conditions that the EU-3 themselves had come up with during their negotiations with the Iranians. So these aren't new. Those conditions were reaffirmed by the IAEA.
So again, I'm not going to at this point offer any formal response from us to public statements from Mr. Larijani. Secretary Rice did talk to Mr. Solana. She got a preliminary readout of the meeting between the Iranian representative, Mr. Larijani, and Mr. Solana.
I would just say at this point it is up to the Iranians in their response which pathway we're going to go down here. We know what the two pathways are. There's a positive pathway that could lead to potential benefits to the Iranian people. That's the pathway of negotiation and we are fully prepared to go down that pathway. We are also fully prepared, as are the other members of the P5+1, to go down the other pathway. That is the pathway of the UN Security Council.
So in the absence of a clear answer, the P5+1 has in the past stated their willingness to go down that other pathway. So let's -- and I'm not going to prejudge at this point what the outcome of the discussions of the P5+1 foreign ministers are going to be, but in the absence of a clear answer from the Iranians that they are going to meet the conditions laid out by the P5+1 as well as the IAEA, then the P5+1 has said in the past that they are fully prepared to go down that other pathway of the Security Council.
QUESTION: Is the suspension negotiable?
MR. MCCORMACK: The P5+1 has been very firm on the conditions that the Iranians have to meet. It has been talked about by the IAEA -- suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing-related activities. It's very simple. And in return for that suspension, the P5+1 said that they would suspend any activity in the UN Security Council.
So what we have done is given the Iranians ample space, given them wide berth here, six weeks, to provide an answer. They had many, many opportunities along the way since that proposal was presented to them to get clarification from Mr. Solana to answer -- to get answers to whatever questions they may have. So they have had their meeting with Mr. Solana. We'll wait to see what the ministers have to say about what Mr. Solana heard in that meeting.
QUESTION: But if I can ask another question, he also said that the P5+1 are divided on this question. This -- is the --
MR. MCCORMACK: I've detected no division on this matter.
QUESTION: On the enrichment, negotiable or not?
MR. MCCORMACK: I've detected no divisions on that. The P5+1 is united on that.
QUESTION: From your remarks, including your repetition twice of the phrase "in the absence of a clear answer," is it the position of the United States Government that no clear answer was delivered by Mr. Larijani?
MR. MCCORMACK: We're going to wait for the discussion among the ministers, James, to offer the P5+1 united reaction to what was heard. I'm just restating where we have been in the past and up until this point, but I'm going to wait until the Paris meeting and the ministers are going to speak for themselves. You'll have an opportunity to hear directly from them about what the reaction of the P5+1 is to what the Iranians have said.
QUESTION: I, in turn, am merely asking about why you just used the phrase "in the absence of a clear answer" twice to us.
MR. MCCORMACK: Because that has been the position of the P5+1 from the very beginning, that there are these two pathways. And what this proposal was intended to do was to really divine what are the Iranians' true intentions here. They've stated that they want a peaceful nuclear energy program to benefit the Iranian people and that they don't want to use that to -- that program to build a nuclear weapon.
The international community said okay, let's -- you say that that's what you want to do. We'll give you a clear choice one way or the other. We can give you that pathway that will allow you to realize many, many benefits potentially through negotiations for the Iranian people and for the Iranian Government and address your stated desires for peaceful nuclear energy, despite the fact that over the course of many years Iran, through its actions, has eroded the trust with the international community on this very question. If they choose not to take up the international community on that offer, then the international community, the P5+1, is prepared to go down the road of the Security Council which they had already started.
The question -- it's important to realize also that the question still resides at the moment with the Security Council. There has been a presidential statement about this. We, as well as the other members of the Security Council, have deferred any action in the Security Council while this proposal was developed and while we waited for an Iranian response. So I think we have given -- we as a group have given the Iranians plenty of time to respond. And we'll -- you'll have our reaction -- the P5+1 reaction tomorrow.
QUESTION: How long was the telephone call between Secretary Rice and --
MR. MCCORMACK: I'll check for you. I think it was relatively brief.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MR. MCCORMACK: Okay. Anything else on Iran?
QUESTION: Yeah.
MR. MCCORMACK: Okay.
QUESTION: Larijani after this meeting was talking about a long process and he asked for patience. Will you be patient with them?
MR. MCCORMACK: I think the world has been patient with them. I think -- they have had six weeks to consider this question: Do they meet the conditions that have been laid before them? Not by the United States, not by just the Europeans but the international community, the IAEA. Will they meet those conditions in order to get back to the negotiating table? They haven't been asked to provide their final answer on a negotiated solution; that's what discussions are about. They've been asked to answer the threshold question: Will you meet the conditions in order to engage in negotiations? That's what they've been asked. They've been given six weeks to this point to provide an answer to that question.
And I would just point out, too, that this issue just didn't arise six weeks ago. They had two years of discussions with the EU in order to think about this issue, to consider their options and to consider what the potential benefits of a negotiated solution to the existing questions might be. So this didn't just come up. This has been ongoing for some time. So I think the world has given the Iranian Government plenty of time to consider what course it wants to take, what course it wants to pursue at this point. I think the world has been very patient with the Iranian Government.
QUESTION: I know I'll hear from the ministers in due course, along with the rest of the world (laughter), but I just can't conceive that you, as a logical thinking man, would continue using all of these conditional phrases like "in the absence of a clear answer" or if they choose this or that pathway, if in fact, in the meeting between Misters Larijani and Solana, a clear answer had been given.
MR. MCCORMACK: James, stay tuned tomorrow. (Laughter.) Yeah.
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