25 September 2003
Bush to Discuss Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program with Putin
White House Report, September 25: Iran, Syria
The discovery by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of traces of weapons-grade uranium in Iran will be on President Bush's agenda when he meets at Camp David this weekend with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In a short question-and-answer session with reporters September 25 at the White House, Bush said "it will be on my agenda with President Putin this weekend. It was on my agenda with many of the world leaders I met with in New York. It is very important for the world to come together to make it very clear to Iran that there will be universal condemnation if they continue with a nuclear weapons program. And I will tell you, the response was very positive. People understand the danger of the Iranians having a nuclear weapons program."
Earlier in the day, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said the White House has a lot of concerns about Iran's nuclear activities.
"[I]t was just two weeks ago that the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency expressed concern about Iran's nuclear activities and called for Iran to comply by the end of October with its obligations. And it asked the director general of the IAEA to report to the board by November so that the board can draw some conclusions from that," McClellan said.
"Iran has been given a chance to comply. They have an October 31 deadline. And, at that point, if they fail to meet what the IAEA laid out, then we believe it should be taken to the [U.N.] Security Council. I wouldn't want to speculate beyond that," the press secretary said.
McClellan called the matter is an example of multilateral success. The United States, he said, was the country raising the issue months ago and bringing to light and talking about Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, and now the international community is expressing the same concern that the U.S. has been expressing.
"So this is one last chance for Iran to comply," he said. "And if it doesn't, then we believe it should be reported to the Security Council" for them to determine what to do. A number of options are available to the council, he said, but he refused to speculate further.
Told by a reporter that French President Jacques Chirac seems to have joined in this and said essentially what the administration is saying, McClellan said:
"We welcome that. The president brought this up with leaders in many of his bilateral meetings, the importance of the international community keeping the pressure on Iran to comply. And so that's where things stand at this point."
There's no reason for Iran to pursue nuclear energy when they have all the oil and gas reserves that they do in that country, he said. "And we've raised these concerns. If they fail to comply, we believe they should be found in non-compliance by the [IAEA] board, and then that should be sent to the Security Council. That's what we've repeatedly said, and we'll go from there."
SYRIA NEEDS TO ADDRESS U.S. CONCERNS, WHITE HOUSE SAYS
"[W]e've made it very clear to the government in Syria that we have a number of concerns that they need to address," McClellan told reporters, including terrorism and weapons of mass destruction programs.
Asked about news reports alleging that an American Muslim chaplain and an American Muslim airman stationed at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had ties to Syria, McClellan said the Department of Defense and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating the matter.
"This is a matter being pursued by them. I'm not going to prejudge anything at this point," he said.
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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