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QUESTION: Can you tell us anything about the Secretary's meeting with the President, expected this afternoon, whether you expect decisions to come out of this?

MR. ERELI: I'm not aware of a meeting with the President this afternoon.

QUESTION: I think he's --

MR. ERELI: My latest conversation with the White House was that there wasn't a meeting. Maybe that's changed since our discussion. But I think I'd leave it where the Secretary left it in her latest public -- her recent public comments, which is that that we are -- based on the President's meetings in Europe with his European counterparts, there are a number of ideas under discussion. Those discussions will continue, and -- but we don't have any timetable for decisions. And I'd just leave it at that.

Yes, Joel.

QUESTION: Change of subject.

QUESTION: Not yet.

MR. ERELI: Yes.

QUESTION: Today you had your envoy to the IAEA, Jackie Sanders, saying that the speech by the IAEA's Deputy Director General was startling evidence of Iranian attempts to mislead, hide and delay the work of inspectors. On Monday, the White House said that one of the reasons you were joining on to the EU-3's plan was because Iran was being more cooperative in the past few months and giving more information to the IAEA. Is this a contradiction in what's being said?

MR. ERELI: I think -- I don't think there's a contradiction. I think the way to look at this issue is as follows. Number one, the point of departure is that Iran is pursuing a nuclear program that is a cause for concern for the international community. It is a program which we believe is concealing a nuclear weapons development effort, that there is a clear unanimity of views among us and our European colleagues and Russia and others that Iran should not be allowed to develop and should not be able to develop a nuclear weapon because that is against all of our interests, and that therefore we and our colleagues are leading a multifaceted effort on a number of levels to prevent that from happening.

We are doing it in cooperation with the IAEA in seeking to gain full Iranian compliance with its NPT obligations and seeking to get Iranian answers on a number of outstanding questions that we have regarding its nuclear program and seeking to have access to a number of Iranian sites that are of concern to the IAEA. We're doing that through the IAEA.

Concurrently, the EU-3 is working with Iran to achieve a suspension and eventually a cessation of its uranium enrichment program. They have achieved so far a temporary suspension. I would say it's -- I would underscore that it's only temporary. We are working for a full cessation. The President and Secretary have said we are supportive of that effort, we are looking at ways that we can help further that effort to bring about the common goal, which is control and, eventually, an end to Iran's nuclear development program.

Ambassador Sanders in her presentation to the IAEA Board of Governors reiterated some of the, you know, many of the points that we have made consistently at the previous Board of Governors meetings, that Iran continues to deny the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors the cooperation and transparency that they need to fulfill their duties to ensure Iranian compliance and to ensure Iranian fulfillment of its obligations.

Ambassador Sanders also said it's clear from what we've heard before from the Deputy Director General, Mr. Goldschmidt, and what we heard from Director General ElBaradei in his previous reports during this meeting, that it's clear that Iran has still not come clean about its nuclear activities, and I think the conclusion was that concerns are deepening rather than diminishing.

So what we've seen, you know, from Iran is a pattern of, you know, sometimes give a little, but also take a lot, and that this is a pattern that is continuing and that as a result, even though we're all trying to push things forward in a positive direction in terms of compliance, transparency, cooperation and -- well, in that direction, Iran continues to evade and obstruct and otherwise further its own isolation in the international community.

And the message to take away from it all is that it's not going to work. It's not in Iran's interest. It's certainly not in the international community's interest, and there's a growing, I think, growing consensus and a growing unanimity of views that we are going to work together to prevent this from happening.

QUESTION: So is Iran cooperating more than it used to or is it not?

MR. ERELI: I wouldn't conclude that. I would say that, as Ambassador Sanders said, as we have consistently made clear both here and at the White House, that Iran continues to seek to develop a nuclear weapons capability under cover of a peaceful nuclear program, that this is unacceptable and that the international community is going to do everything it can and remain united in working to prevent that.

Yes.

QUESTION: In addition to the nuclear problem, with Iraq you've always been critical and concerned about possible meddling in Iraqi politics and there are reports to say that some of the people on the Sistani list are worried that Iran is seeking to influence too much the process of forming a government. Are these concerns that you guys share?

MR. ERELI: These are concerns that we take very, very seriously, especially when we hear them coming, as you suggest, from the Iraqis themselves. Iraq is going through a particularly critical period in its history as it seeks to form its first freely-elected national government. We think therefore that it's important to restate our view that Iraqis should be free to determine their own future without foreign interference. It is for the elected members of Iraq's future national assembly to decide on their government. As we did in the historical elections in January, we support the Iraqis' right to choose their own leaders freely.

I would note that this is an issue that Prime Minister Allawi and other Iraqis have spoken to previously in calling on all of Iraq's neighbors to respect Iraq's sovereignty, respect Iraq's stability. We, for our part, have pledged to work with whatever government Iraqis freely choose and we call on all states to do the same and to refrain from interfering with the Iraqi process of forming a new government.

Yes.

QUESTION: Yeah, just to get back to the nuclear issue for a second there. A Senior Administration official briefing reporters on the plane said that Secretary Rice had dinner with her counterparts, the European counterparts last night, and seemed to indicate there that they raised some proposals and we said we'd get back to them. Can you say what is the next procedure and what is the timeframe that we're going to be talking about in terms of proposals for dealing with Iran on the nuclear issue?

MR. ERELI: Yeah. No, in answering the question previously, I said I don't have any timetables. As the Secretary has said, this will be an issue we're discussing. We've already begun talking about it within the national security policy -- the President's advisors have already begun talking about it. We will continue those discussions. But I can't give you some timetable for when decisions are going to be made.

QUESTION: Okay. And just one other follow-up on that. I think McClellan at the White House was briefing yesterday that the Iranians were showing signs of providing more information and more access. Is that --

MR. ERELI: Well, I saw what Scott said, and he said in some cases they have been. But it was not a -- as you suggested in your earlier question, a -- how should I put it? -- a general conclusion. In some cases they have provided information; for example, the indicator or the material concerning their efforts or their contacts with the A.Q. Khan network and their efforts to -- or their offers of that network to provide material for nuclear weapons.

And so they have been responsive in some cases. But the point that we're making is that what they give with one hand, they take away with another, and that, you know, the point that Baradei made in his presentation, the point that Deputy Director General Goldschmidt made in his presentation, the point that the EU-3, members of the EU-3 made in their presentations at the Board of Governors meeting, is, "We're all the same." I mean, they dealt with different issues but the general point was all the same, that Iran has blocked access to sites by inspectors -- I'm sorry -- Iran has blocked sites to -- access to sites by inspectors; they have not answered questions about activities that members of the Board of Governors found disturbing and found alarming; and they have continued to engage in some activities that are not viewed as consistent with previous commitments.

So certain actions, positive actions or cooperative actions aside, there is a continuing pattern of, as I said, evasion and obstruction and obfuscation that, as Ambassador Sanders says, increases rather than diminishes our concerns.

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