Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Remark on Iran (Excerpts)

March 19, 2010

Weapon Program: 

  • Nuclear

. . .

QUESTION: Good afternoon. Mark Landler from The New York Times. Also a question for both of you. It has been seven months since the disclosure of the secret Iranian nuclear facility at Qom, three months since the Iranian government rejected the offer of enrichment for the Tehran research reactor, and one month since the government of Iran announced it would begin enriching uranium up to 20 percent. And yet, after (inaudible) an international solidarity on how to confront Iran are continuing and taking by all accounts longer than anyone had hoped, there have been some comments recently from diplomats that we might not see a UN resolution until June.

My question is simply whether you worry that the clock is in some sense running out? And what you would hope to do to speed up this process?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first of all, we have pursued the diplomatic track and thought it was correct to do so. We are now, however, at the stage where we are asking for action and are working very hard in the Security Council to attain a resolution expressing the international community's disapproval of Iranian actions and pulling together the world in a regime of smart sanctions, as President Medvedev has referred to them, that will try to change the behavior of the Iranian leadership. And we believe we are making progress because many countries are seeing what you have briefly summarized along with the latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, and we expect to reach consensus around an appropriate response.

FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV: (Via interpreter) What I can add is that we follow very closely all the information that is published in the media including your media, The New York Times, about new facts that are somehow in one way or another linked with any suspicions on the Iranian nuclear program. We would, of course, prefer that those people that obtain such information publish it immediately without any delays. But I want to highlight that we do follow it closely. But of course, we're guided not by assessments given by media people or political analysts but the IAEA specialists, which is an internationally recognized instrument of the international community in this world. And reports that IAEA Director General publishes on regular basis contains very precise assessment that do not give reasons to any sort of alarms.

But that does not mean that we are satisfied with the Iranian actions. What we see is that they are letting the opportunity to establish normal, respectful, mutually beneficial dialogue with the international community slip away. And this dialogue was put on the table by the IAEA and the 3+3 format.

So we are continuing our consultations with Iran. We believe that they need to comply with statements made or with requirements that were once put on the table by the IAEA and were reaffirmed on numerous occasions by the Security Council. So we'll try to make them comply with them, but we do not exclude the possibility that additional work in the UN Security Council might be required.

As President Medvedev put it on numerous occasions, sanctions are never beneficial, but there are some instances where they are impossible to avoid, and the Iranian case might be one of such instance. And as President Medvedev also mentioned on a number of occasions and he reaffirmed that today that sanctions must be smart. They must not be aggressive. They must not paralyze the life of Iranian state. They must not degrade the humanitarian situation and the country. They must not be targeted against the population but rather against those people that are in charge of the decision making process and that identified already in position on the international arena.

And we reaffirmed to our U.S. partners today that we are prepared to continue our cooperation in accordance with the outlined principles. I thank you.