U.S. Relations With the People's Republic of China (2008)

U.S. Department of State

Remarks With Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, David Miliband

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Remarks following a Question-and-Answer Session at Google Headquarters
Mountain View, California
May 22, 2008

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QUESTION: Madame Secretary, what about the situation with -- in Iran right now? Are you going to be working collaboratively to try to get more surveillance and more intelligence information as to what they're doing there?

SECRETARY RICE: Yes, thank you for the question, David. As a matter of fact, Secretary Miliband and I are a part of what we call the P-5+1, or the -- Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, and the United States -- that forms, really, the kind of lead international coalition on trying to get Iran to stop enriching and reprocessing so that it can't develop a nuclear weapon. These are technologies that could lead to the development of a nuclear weapon. We've passed three successful Security Council resolutions. The collateral effects of those Security Council resolutions include that Iran's having more and more difficulty accessing the financial -- the international financial system. Investment in Iran's oil and gas infrastructure has gone down. Iran is paying a cost.

But of course, one of the lead elements of how we keep track on what is going on in Iran is the International Atomic Energy Agency. And one of the strongest parts of our policy has been to require Iran to be fully transparent with the IAEA, which should have the right to the full range of inspections in Iran. Because when Iran -- if Iran has peaceful intent, as they say, then they should have no problem with the International Atomic Energy Agency having complete and absolute and total access. And the word that is coming out is that that is not being provided to the IAEA. So that's really our best tool in many ways, David, for an international set of eyes on what the Iranians are doing.

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