U.S. Relations with the People's Republic of China (2006)

U.S. Department of State

Iran's Nuclear Ambitions: Two Paths to the Bomb, Another Path to Peace

Ambassador Gregory L. Schulte, U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN, Vienna
Remarks at Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
November 13, 2006

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A Path to Peace

Our goal is to secure a diplomatic solution, one in which the leaders in Tehran give up their pursuit of nuclear weapons and fully meet their international obligations.

With that goal in mind, we have worked with Europe, Russia, China, and other like-minded countries to present Iran's leaders with a clear choice.

The negative choice is for Iran's leaders to maintain their present course, ignoring international concerns and their international obligations.

The positive choice, the constructive choice, the choice that would most benefit the Iranian people, is for Iran's leaders to cooperate with the international community and to take credible steps to assure the world that their nuclear program is solely peaceful. This must start by Iran meeting IAEA and Security Council requirements to suspend all activities related to uranium enrichment and plutonium production.

The IAEA required these suspensions as voluntary confidence-building measures. The Security Council, in Resolution 1696, has gone one step further, making the suspensions mandatory.

Iran suspending these activities would allow the Security Council to suspend further action. And Iran suspending these activities would allow negotiations to proceed on a long-term agreement.

To provide the basis for an agreement, six Foreign Ministers from Europe, Russia, China, and the United States endorsed a package of incentives on June 1. The package offers substantial economic, political, and technological opportunities for the Islamic Republic. In the nuclear field, these include:

• reaffirmation of Iran's right to nuclear energy in conformity with its NPT obligations;
• willingness by EURATOM, the European nuclear agency, to conclude a nuclear cooperation agreement with Iran;
• active support for building new light-water power reactors, using state-of-the-art technology; and
• legally-binding assurances of fuel supply for any future Iranian nuclear reactors.

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Released on November 13, 2006