There is no rush for sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Saturday at a press event during President George W Bush's visit to Pakistan.
"Nobody has said that we have to rush immediately to sanctions of some kind," said Rice, according to the text of the event received in Washington.
Commenting on Monday's meeting in Vienna of the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors, Rice said: "After the board report, I think the Security Council will have to have a serious discussion about what the next steps will be.
The London Agreement -- a January 16 meeting in London between Germany and China, the United States, France, Britain and Russia, the five permanent UN security council members -- was that the council "would not take action until after the board report," she said.
"I keep reading in the newspapers a breakthrough here, or a breakthrough there," she said.
"I don't think that -- when you talk to the diplomats, I think what you're getting is that the Iranians have still not said the words that everybody needs them to say, which is that, first of all, they'll suspend the activities that they restarted in violation of the Paris Agreement, and secondly, that they understand that a civil nuclear program for Iran is going to have to be one that does not include enrichment and reprocessing on Iranian territory.
{{/usCountry}}"I don't think that -- when you talk to the diplomats, I think what you're getting is that the Iranians have still not said the words that everybody needs them to say, which is that, first of all, they'll suspend the activities that they restarted in violation of the Paris Agreement, and secondly, that they understand that a civil nuclear program for Iran is going to have to be one that does not include enrichment and reprocessing on Iranian territory.
{{/usCountry}}"Those are the bottom lines, and I haven't heard anything to this point that suggests the Iranians have accepted those bottom lines," she said.