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Reporter: Can you give us a sense of where things might stand on discussions with Larijani? The Russian ambassador yesterday obviously gave the impression that they don't feel nearly the same sense of urgency that you do on these sanctions discussions. Where are we headed?

Ambassador Bolton: Well, I think at this point, Javier Solana is looking to find out where Larijani is, and then see if they can agree on a mutually agree on a convenient, great city of Europe where they can meet, or a great city of almost anywhere. It would be nice to have the meeting. We thought the meeting would occur within the last seven days, or I guess I should say the third or fourth meeting of this series. We are trying to go the extra mile or indeed go several extra miles to give the European Union the fullest possible chance to explore the options that they have been pursuing. But I think the President and Secretary Rice made it very clear this week that absent a verifiable suspension of Iran's uranium enrichment activities, we're prepared to move for sanctions here in the Council and to take similar steps to exert economic pressure on Iran outside the Council, and that remains our view.

But this is an effort to accommodate our friends in Europe and we're making every effort to accommodate them. And I'm sure that they are just as eager to get this resolved because there is no doubt that for the last three years Iran has used the cover of negotiations to continue to perfect technical aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle. As you recall, but I will repeat because it's important. Hassan Ruhani, the former chief nuclear negotiator, made a speech where he quite publicly said that Iran and taken advantage of negotiations with the EU3 to perfect their uranium conversion facility at Isfahan, a facility that converts uranium from solid form into a gaseous form, which needs to be done before the enrichment step can be taken. Time works for the Iranian side to allow them to make progress to perfect all of the various aspects of the work they need to complete the nuclear fuel cycle. That's why suspension is so important.

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