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QUESTION: A question for you both, please, on Iran. Last week came and went without the answer you hoped for. It's not clear what will happen this week or even by the time of the G-8. Do you sense a sense of drift here? Is Iran essentially stringing you all along? And at what point does their non-answer become an answer and what do you do?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, first of all, we will have an opportunity to meet with our colleagues in Paris on July 12th, at which time, as the G-8 statement said, we will assess the situation. It is very clear that the Iranians have before them a very beneficial proposal, a proposal that would be beneficial for their energy needs, but a proposal that has wider-ranging implications as well for trade and other matters. And it is really time to get an authoritative answer to that proposal.

Nevertheless, when we were in Vienna, as Secretary Beckett was the host when she noted that there are really two paths here, we hope that the Iranians choose the path before them for cooperation. But of course, we can always return to the other path, should we need to, and that path, as described by the Secretary was, of course, the path to the Security Council. Now it's our great hope that we are going to get an authoritative answer, but this is something that we're going to take up and consider when we meet in Paris.

Margaret, do you want to --

SECRETARY BECKETT: Not really. I think all I can do is really to say how much I agree with that. We have -- we went to a great deal of trouble. The original proponents of these moves were the EU-3, but Secretary Rice and our other colleagues were very keen to see that we had a stronger set of proposals as possible. We worked on those proposals and we had actually pretty much the basis of agreement when we met in New York, but we decided we wanted to put further work in to deepen and strengthen the proposals that we could put to Iran so that there was a real incentive for Iran to return to the path of negotiation. And we all very much hope that they will do so, but as Secretary Rice says, we will be meeting again in Paris, hopefully to discuss how we take those negotiations forward.

QUESTION: Do you feel, though, that you're being strung along?

SECRETARY BECKETT: Well, let's see what comes in the next few days. The Iranians have now had good time to look very carefully and in depth what is, to be fair, a detailed set of proposals. They have said on a number of occasions that there are, although not to us but they have been reported as saying in the media that there are ambiguities, there are questions. Fine, let's get those ambiguities and questions resolved so that we can move towards negotiation.

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