Remarks by Assistant Secretary Philip Crowley on Iran (Excerpts)

October 13, 2009

Weapon Program: 

  • Nuclear

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QUESTION: I have a question on - I have a question on this Iran sanctions bill that expected to pass the House today. It's kind of designed - it's focused on encouraging state pension funds from divesting in Iran's energy sector. I'm wondering if you have an opinion on whether this legislation would be helpful to you in trying to put pressure on Iran right now, or given that you're kind of still trying to see if these talks with Iran are going to shake out, whether that's detrimental.

MR. CROWLEY: I won't comment on specific legislation. I'm not aware that we've seen it. But certainly, our strategy involves a two-track approach that includes engagement as well as pressure. We have a suite of sanctions that are in place, and we continue to work to see how to make them more effective. As the Secretary and the President have made clear, our offer of engagement with Iran is not open-ended. We'll wait to see what happens later this month when inspectors arrive in Iran to go through the newly disclosed facility. And then we hope to have a meeting with Iran by the end of the month as a follow-up to the recent meeting in Geneva.

But certainly, when you look at Iran's economy, it has vulnerabilities, and we think there are still opportunities to apply pressure if Iran is unwilling to address the concerns the United States and the other members of the international community have about its nuclear aspirations.

QUESTION: Especially in light of the revelations about Qom, is the U.S. disappointed that Russia is not at least willing to put out the possibility of more sanctions against Iran if it doesn't comply with what it says it's going to do - allow these inspectors to have --

MR. CROWLEY: I would challenge the presumption behind your question. Certainly, it's safe to say that the United States, Russia, China may look at the prospect of sanctions from a slightly different vantage point. That said, you had a very strong statement by President Medvedev when he recently met with President Obama in New York. You had a very strong statement by the foreign ministers of the P-5+1. I think there's unanimity coming out of Geneva about what Iran has to do. We'll wait and see what happens through this process. I think the Secretary over the weekend called it positive or constructive. But really, it will be up to Iran to put its cards on the table, and we hope to see that happen very soon.

QUESTION: But it did seem that Lavrov's comments today after his meeting with the Secretary seemed to indicate a little bit of backing away from what his own boss said about the use of sanctions or --

MR. CROWLEY: I'll leave it to the foreign minister to characterize whether he and his president see this eye-to-eye. But I think we were very satisfied with the meeting today, with the meetings recently in New York. And right now, the focus is on Iran and what will happen on October 25 and then what will happen in the aftermath of that.

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