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Q: The Ayatollah's comments -- a snub, do you consider them? I mean, a month ago the President offers direct talks.
MR. SNOW: No. No. The President has never offered direct talks. Again, keep in mind what I've said many times, which is you're going to get a number of voices from Iran, as the Iranian government and factions within the Iranian government try to figure out how they are going to proceed with not only the United States offer, but also the EU3, a package of incentives if the Iranians agree to renounce uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities.
At this point we've heard varying responses from different quarters, and as a matter of fact, if you take a look at the Ayatollah's remarks today, they are ambiguous. But we've been pretty clear here. The original set of incentives was transmitted from Javier Solana to Ali Larijani, and we expect Ali Larijani to transmit the response through Javier Solana. So we're going to let different factions within the Iranian government publicly and privately figure out how they're going to respond. We expect a formal response to come through the channel by which it was transmitted originally.
Jim.
Q: Tony, this is not just another faction. I mean, Ayatollah Khamenei is the final arbiter of state issues. He can't be sort of dismissed as one in the chorus.
MR. SNOW: He's not dismissed, but if you take a look, the comments are ambiguous. And again, we've been pretty clear about the proper method of transmission. He may not be one in the chorus, but as I've said before, Jim, we've been watching this since the original announcement was made, and we have seen different -- we have seen people provide different kinds of answers, sometimes different responses between morning and afternoon. We are waiting for a consistent, official response, and it would be conveyed through the channel, again, through Ali Larijani to Javier Solana. Yes, I know, he is a man of consequence in Iran, but you go back and read the statement; I don't think you see something that's absolutely definitive, and we expect the response to follow the proper channels.
Q: He's saying that they don't need negotiations with the U.S. over nuclear programs -- it's, if nothing else, it's disappointing and discouraging, isn't it?
MR. SNOW: Go back -- no, no.
Q: It's not disappointing or discouraging?
MR. SNOW: No, because we don't have an official response from the Iranian government. We will wait to act and to respond and to give you a state of mind when we have a proper, official response through the government.
Q: One follow on this, Tony, because I'm wondering in terms of the time frame how things like this, statements like this affect this squishy area -- are we talking weeks, are we talking months? And if you certainly don't get it by the G8, how do you see this unfolding, aside from we know -- we've made it clear the time frame in which you want to hear from them. They're making it just as clear that they don't care what you want.
MR. SNOW: Well, no they're not. And keep in mind that there is difference between public and private statements, and I don't want to go any further than that, except that we are not the only -- there have been conversations between members of the EU3 and the government of Iran. And we expect the Iranians to provide a proper answer within the span of weeks and not months. And we are not going to conduct further negotiations from the podium.
Q: And the conversations that have been had are enough so that it can shape your sense of security about the fact that these negotiations are ongoing?
MR. SNOW: The question is -- this is on the Iranians. The Iranians have to make the decision. And again, you go back and you parse all the statements, they vary -- there have been all sorts of different sort of shadings of meaning and whether they're for or against. The Iranians are going to have to decide. And the decision is not merely whether they're going to suspend enrichment and reprocessing activities, but whether they're going to go ahead and take the path that leads them toward the basket of incentives, which we hope they will do.
But that debate, I think it's safe to say, is ongoing within circles in Iran, and they're going to have to make that decision. So, at this point, the government of Iran has not spoken with one official voice, and I dare say that various people speaking on behalf of the government of Iran have not spoken with a unified voice.
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Q: Coming back on Iran, you said that you were getting positive statements from Iran. Can you tell us where they're coming from? Is it the Iranian regime --
MR. SNOW: I suppose what's happened is you've had different spokesmen with the Iranian regime who have given different shadings, sometimes appearing to sort of welcome, or at least be willing to think about some way of trying to reach out to the EU3. In other cases, you've had things that sounded categorical. So that's really what I meant; it's the approach. I've also cautioned repeatedly don't read too much into any of that. It is people publicly trying to figure out what their position is going to be, and in some cases, they're speaking to their publics and they're making their arguments. And what we expect is for the inner councils of the Iranian government -- which even though there's a lot of public statements, the internal activities of that government still remain fairly opaque, it's not a transparent government -- at some point, they are going to have to decide what their position is going to be, and they will have to transmit it through the proper channels.
Q: Are any of those representatives speaking for Ahmadinejad that the United States is aware of?
MR. SNOW: Any of them speaking for him? I think he's speaking for himself. I don't know that he's deputized anybody to speak for him.
Q: So those back channels don't involve anybody --
MR. SNOW: Well, I'm not at liberty to talk about back channels. Again, what I'm simply saying is the public statements that we have seen give you differing impressions about how people may be reacting, not only to what the United States has suggested it would do, but also to the package of incentives offered by the EU3.
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