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QUESTION: Mr. President, if the EU does not receive a definitive answer from Iran on the incentives package by next week, do you foresee the G8 summit as being a springboard to bring that issue to the U.N. Security Council? And what do you say to Americans who are frustrated by the familiar roadblocks, it seems, of China and Russia on harsh sanctions?

THE PRESIDENT: I said I wasn't going to answer a hypothetical; now you're trying to get me to answer a hypothetical. The G8 will be an opportunity for those of us involved with this issue to make it clear to the Iranians that they -- we're firm in our resolve for them not to have a nuclear weapon.

I talked to President Putin about North Korea; I also talked to him about Iran. I believe he understands the dangers of the Iranians having a nuclear weapon.

Some nations are more comfortable with sanctions than other nations, and part of the issue we face in some of these countries is that they've got economic interests. And part of our objective is to make sure that national security interests, security of the world interests trump economic interests. And sometimes that takes a while to get people focused in the right direction.

You know, the first step of a diplomatic solution is for there to be a common goal agreed upon by those of us participating in the process. The goal in North Korea is a nuclear weapons-free peninsula -- not just in North Korea, but North and South Korea. And that's an important goal. It's important for the neighborhood to have embraced that goal.

The goal for Iran is for them to have a -- verifiably get rid of their weapons program. The first step, however, is to -- for their verifiable suspension. And by the way, if they will verifiably do which they said they would do in Paris, we will come back to the table. That's what we've said we will do.

And whether or not they -- what their posture is we're finding out as a result of the conversations of Mr. Solana of the EU and Mr. Larijani. I do appreciate Javier Solana's work on this issue. I saw him when I was in Austria, and I thanked him for doing a good job.

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