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Reporter: In terms of Iran, is there still room for negotiations with Larijani's meeting with Solana and then the political director meeting. What are the expectations to come out? Is there more wiggle room?

Ambassador Bolton: I don't know what are the expectations are for the meeting. The European Union requested it. We've certainly agreed to it. But I would just recall the terms of Resolution 1696 that says Iran has to suspend all uranium enrichment activity. That's not a United States condition. That is the Security Counsel's condition. Before that it was the condition of the International Atomic Energy Agency and before that it was a condition of EU3.

Reporter: On the Iran sanctions. The EU countries are proposing it seems kind of limited sanctions initially that could scale up along the way. Is that a kind of format the US is supportive of?

Ambassador Bolton: Well, we are in consultation with EU and other governments about what the sanctions, the first sanctions resolution could be. One possibility is the kind of procedure you've described of a relatively small number of sanctions escalated over time. Another option is a very tough sanctions resolution as the first one. We haven't made any decision on that point and I'm not aware that any European government has made any decision on that point.

. . .

Reporter: On the subject of Iran sanctions. I believe you said that the US and its allies in this are not looking to target Iranian citizens. Can you explain, even in a ramping up, what that means? How Iranians would understand that what you are doing in any scaling up of sanctions, how that would work?

Ambassador Bolton: Well, what we are talking about is not targeting the general Iranian population. We don't have a quarrel with the people of Iran; we have a quarrel with government of Iran that's pursuing nuclear weapons. So I am not saying that some individuals wouldn't be the targets of sanctions. I think very defiantly they would be. Individuals that are engage in weapons proliferation, the nuclear program, the ballistic missile program, leadership that has enriched themselves at the expense of people of Iran. I think we are thinking about a lot of those things, but the point is the sanctions would be targeted and not general and therefore would hopefully have a minimal impact on the regular lives of the citizens of Iran. Yes sir.

Reporter: Ambassador, on the issue of Iranian sanctions that you stipulating. Have you had conversations with the Chinese or the Russian Ambassadors or do you think it is not worth it to pursue that conversation now?

Ambassador Bolton: We haven't discussed the specifics, but obviously in the run-up to Resolution 1696, we had a full discussion of the possible implications. Our foreign ministers, the foreign ministers of the five permanent members in Germany have had that conversation and there have been discussions about it during the month since the passage of1696. And those discussions will continue after the Solana-Larijani meeting next week

Reporter: Could you disclose… or not disclose…

Ambassador Bolton: (laughing) … No, I won't disclose. Whatever it is you want, I won't disclose.

Reporter: Who are the coalition partners that you eventually foresee will be on board with the United States in imposing sanctions on Iran?

Ambassador Bolton: Well, I think with respect to the possibility of Security Council action we'll be consulting in the Council but there are a wide variety of countries that we cooperate with in the fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The proliferation security initiative already has over sixty countries that work with us in that effort. So we expect that our efforts will make the coalition as broad as possible. Ok, anything else then?

Reporter: On sanctions. There's obviously two forms of sanctions. One is sort of a the punishment of individuals to get their behavior changed but another is actually putting in place the mechanisms to actually stop things from getting in and out of the country. To what extent would you be interested in the latter sort of sanctions, i.e. containment restriction, that kind of thing?

Ambassador Bolton: I think that if you look at the sort of sanctions imposed on North Korea in 1965, in trying to keep North Korea from continuing to make it's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs function, that those are the sorts of things, in addition to financial transactions, that we'll be looking at. But, again, no decision has been made on the specifics.

O.K. I'll just … one more then.

Reporter: Do you worry that if you impose sanctions on Iran, they could retaliate? You know they are the biggest producer on oil. Would they use that against a country like yours or ours? That could be their weapon.

Ambassador Bolton: I can't speculate on what the government of Iran will do. But I can say that President Bush has been very emphatic that it is unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons. And it's a country with a lot of natural resources, oil and natural gas, which by the way is one reason why its argument that it needs a civil nuclear power program is not a credible argument. But it's also why we're not targeting the people of Iran with the sanctions we are considering. But what they do really, the ball is in their court, whether they want to give up the pursuit of nuclear weapons or not. And that's what's important for us to pursue.

Have a nice weekend. See you later.