Bush said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was working with European states to ensure that Iran would not be able to drag on the process of negotiations over suspension while continuing with its nuclear fuel work.
I talked to the Secretary of State about this very subject this morning, who agrees with me that we ought to give the Europeans time to see whether or not the Iranians will make the proper choice about verifiably suspending, and at the same time, she assures me that she’s working with them to make sure that this process cannot go on forever, he said.
Asked about the timeframe he had in mind for Tehran to halt enrichment, Bush said, My judgment is, sooner rather than later, to make sure that these discussions are not their attempt to stall their way into us losing our interest in the subject.
The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1696 on July 31 demanding that Tehran suspend all its uranium enrichment activities by August 31 or face the threat of sanctions. Tehran missed that deadline.
The chief of the UN nuclear watchdog Mohammad ElBaradei reported on August 31 that Tehran had not suspended its uranium enrichment activities and had blocked IAEA inspectors from inspecting its nuclear facilities.
