Nicholas Burns Interview With Radio Free Europe

R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs
Washington, DC
August 20, 2007

Interview With Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

MR. GEDMIN: (In progress) of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, as you may know, we selected instead of, Nick, your usual cast of thousands, we wanted this to be a relatively participant-intensive round with you, so we collected about 35 of our star broadcasters. And I'll remind those of you who don't know perhaps that our broadcasters are reaching out to Russia and Ukraine, the Black Sea region, to Central Asia, down through Afghanistan, an important audience for us; Iraq, an important audience for us; and Iran, a very important audience for us as well. So welcome, Prague, and glad you're here.

And now to our guest. Nick Burns has served at the White House, at the NSC. Nick Burns has served as State Department spokesman. Nick Burns has served as Ambassador to Greece, a number of other important things. You know his bio and you know him, but I would say right now as Under Secretary for Political Affairs has a lot to say about a number of issues -- the nuclear issue, a broad range of strategic issues, including Iran, not only Iran but including Iran.

And, Nick, I'd like to say thank you because substantively I think this is going to enrich our conversation inside this organization, but frankly it's a boost to us that you came and made time, so thank you. Welcome.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Thank you very much. Jeff, thank you very much and a pleasure to see everybody here in Washington, D.C., and it's nice to see on the screen the group that is currently meeting in Prague. I think a lot of us wish we were in Prague; it's such a beautiful city at this time of year.

But I wanted to say first how much I respect the work of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. And I just gave an interview, in fact, with Radio Farda, which is our Persian language radio station going into Iran, so I want to thank the people at Radio Farda as well. And thank Jeff Gedmin. He was a great director of the Aspen Institute Berlin for six years. In fact, I visited him several times when I was NATO Ambassador in Berlin, and thank him for organizing this and bringing everyone together.

I don't have a big speech planned. I don't think you want me to give a speech because I'd rather have a conversation. But I thought I would start off by saying that Jeff has brought together a group of people, both here in Washington and in Prague, and that range over a wide area, and it ranges over the area of, I think, greatest concern to our country, and that is the greater Middle East.

I think if we'd been meeting at any time over the last, you know, six or seven decades, all of us would have focused on the conflicts in Europe itself. If you chart the attention of the American people and the focus of American national security, say from the First World War, from April 1917 when Woodrow Wilson decided to put 2 million American men into battle to turn the tide in the First World War, and say March/April 1999 when Bill Clinton decided to put 50,000 people into Kosovo, Europe was the epicenter of American foreign policy.

And I think, happily now, we see that Europe, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, with the end of the Soviet Union, with the liberation of 300 million Europeans from communism, Europe is more united and peaceful and stable now than at any time in the past several hundred years.

But it's that part of Europe, the Balkans and the Caucasus and the Black and Caspian Seas, where there's still a lot of work to be done to make Europe ultimately as peace -- make that part of Europe as peaceful and united and stable as the Western part is. And it means that the attention of the United States when it comes to Europe is increasingly focused on Kosovo, where we're trying very hard to support the proposal that Kosovo should be independent in 2007. That's the position of our country.

Where we're struggling, of course, to keep Bosnia-Herzegovina calm and peaceful and united, where we're trying very hard to support those countries that find themselves under a fair degree of pressure, countries like Georgia and Moldova. Even our allies -- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have come under their -- especially Estonia -- their fair share of pressure from the Russian Federation over the last several months, and where we're trying to work out on the one hand with Russia a productive and successful relationship where we have a lot of differences with the Russian Federation. And we're trying to work out with Ukraine a stable and good American relationship and to encourage that country to stay on the democratic path, and to reach out for a better relationship by Ukraine to both NATO and the European Union in the future.

So that's our concern in Europe. I think that if Europe was for six or seven decades the focal point of American strategic interests, it's now the Middle East. It's now, in fact, the interplay between four great crises. First of all is the crisis in Iraq, where of course we have 160,000 American troops trying to help stabilize the country and bring peace to it. That's the major American priority in the world today, to be successful in Iraq.

Second is to counter and contain the influence of Iran, an Iranian Government that is seeking a nuclear weapons capability against the wishes of most of the rest of the world. It's a remarkable thing. I was just on Radio Farda talking about -- talking to Iranians about the fact that their country is being sanctioned, not just by the United States and Europe and Russia and China, but by all the leading members of the nonaligned movement to which Iran has belonged for so long. India and Brazil and Indonesia and South Africa and Egypt have all voted for sanctions against Iran in the Security Council twice and in the IAEA Board of Governors. So to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons power, to encourage Iran to seek negotiations with us instead on that nuclear issue, is a high priority, to speak against the efforts of the Iranian Government now to fund and arm Hezbollah and Hamas and the Shia militants in Iraq. Iran is funding and arming most of the Middle East terrorist groups, and there's a UN Security Council resolution that prohibits the transfer of arms by Iran, conventional arms, to any country and to any group outside of Iran. Of course, Iran is in wholesale violation of that resolution 1747. That's the second issue in the Middle East.

The third is just to protect democracy in Lebanon and to prevent a return of the pernicious Syrian influence that was so present in that country for 29 years during the Syrian occupation, and to stand up and support Prime Minister Siniora and an independent Lebanon against the attempts of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran to pressure.

And the fourth, and this is not in order of priority obviously, because the fourth would easily be the first, is to continue our 59-year effort since May of 1948 to try to bring peace to Israel and the Palestinians. I was in Israel last week and I signed actually a Memorandum of Understanding with the Israeli Government to provide them with increased military assistance over the next ten years, averaging about $3 billion per year. It's an increase -- a 25 percent increase in American assistance for Israel. And I met with Prime Minister Olmert and Defense Minister Barak and Foreign Minister Livni and the Governor of the Central Bank and talked about the range of issues that we have on the agenda with Israel, from our mutual concern about Iranian adventurism in the Middle East to the need for peace for the Palestinians and the need for the creation of an independent Palestinian state. I then went to Ramallah on Friday and met with Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and his advisor Yasser Abed Rabbo and talked about our wish to be helpful to the Palestinian Authority.

So as we look around the world, the United States is a global power. We have to be active and energetic in each part of the world. Our national interests are tied up in what's happening in Africa, in Latin America, in South and East Asia, in Europe; but our priority focus is on the Middle East. And so I'm happy to talk about any of these issues -- European or Middle Eastern or any other part of the world. And I just want to thank again the men and women of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty for what they're doing to bring objective, truthful information into parts of the world where the government is denying that information to their own people. And Iran is the number one country in question where there is censorship and where the government routinely tries to deny its people the right to understand what other countries think and are doing. I think RFE/RL has a great and significant role to play; and Jeff, under your direction, we know it's going to be a great success. So I make those opening remarks just to set the stage, but I'm happy to answer questions and to engage in conversation on any issue. Thanks very much.

MR. GEDMIN: Terrific. That's a terrific way to get us started. Let me suggest, if I may, that we'll take a couple from Washington and then we'll take a couple from Prague. We'll go back and forth. There's a microphone here at the end of the table that you have to speak into so that colleagues in Prague will hear us. Let's start with Washington. Who would like to get in first?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: If people could identify themselves.

MR. GEDMIN: Identify yourself. And I know I speak for Nick when I say, as long as possible, with multiple parts and footnotes, any question less than 11 minutes we'll discount, right?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Yes. (Laughter.)

MR. GEDMIN: Who's first? Patrick Clausen (ph), front row.

QUESTION: You mentioned the UN sanctions on Iran. In addition the United States has taken measures of its own, and I'm interested in your appreciation of whether or not you thought that some of our allies such as the European Union countries would be willing to join with us in taking more vigorous actions against Iran, especially if progress at the United Nations on additional sanctions is not as speedy or as easy as we would like.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Thank you, Patrick, for the question. I would say this. The proposal that we put to the Iranians, we the perm five countries -- so that's Russia, China, Britain, France, the United States -- and also Germany for the purpose of this negotiation -- on June 1st, 2006, about a year and a half ago, we went to the Iranians and said publicly as well as privately we'd actually like to try to resolve the concerns we have over your nuclear program peacefully and diplomatically, we'd like to negotiate this with you, we'd like to help you build a civil nuclear power sector in Iran without access to the sensitive parts of the fuel cycle but electricity production for the people of Iran, as long as you'll do one thing: suspend your enrichment programs at your plant at Natanz. And if you do suspend, we'll be willing to suspend sanctions at the United Nations. So it's suspension for suspension.

We actually thought that the Iranians might be interested in agreeing to that proposition. Well, they haven't. They turned us down twice in 2006. Javier Solana, representing the Perm five, went back to them in June of this year and said, look, we'd all like to negotiate, including the United States, and Secretary of State Condoleezza will be at the table to negotiate. They turned him down again.

So we said if the Iranians can't accept negotiations and dialogue, then we're going to have to sanction them at the UN to raise the cost to the Iranian Government -- hopefully not the people, but the Iranian Government -- of these actions. So we passed two Security Council resolutions, one in December '06, the second in March of '07. We're now negotiating a third Security Council sanctions resolution, which will be tougher than the first two, and we hope very much it can be passed in the month of September.

I think the European allies, particularly France and Britain, have been very strong and very supportive of this effort. I don't worry about that at all. But there's more than we can do just in the Security Council. You have now seen several European banks decide to shut down all lending to Iran. Now, Iran is not -- as you know, Patrick, very well, Iran is not North Korea. They're not willing to live in isolation. They want and need investment credit and trade with the international community. And the actions of the banks to shut down lending is very important because it shows it's not going to be business as usual.

We would also hope that the European Union and some of the other large trading partners of Iran would even agree to take action outside of the Security Council, perhaps stronger action outside the Security Council, to show their displeasure against the continued program of the Iranian Government to engage in nuclear research at the plant at Natanz.

So I think there are a variety of things that we need to be doing if diplomacy is to succeed, and it's our fervent wish that this problem be settled by diplomacy, be settled by peaceful means. We certainly have time enough to do that and I hope diplomacy can be effective, but we're going to need to see a greater buy-in of some countries around the world, particularly those countries that have active trade relations. I'll give you one example of that now, and this will be my final point.

As recently as 2005, the European Union countries had about $22 billion in export credits available per year to their companies to encourage their companies to do business with Iran. And we think as long as Iran is the subject of Chapter 7 sanctions, and there are only 11 countries of 192 in the world under Chapter 7 sanctions, there should be no business as usual. European countries should not be subsidizing their companies to do business with the Iranian Government. And so we've asked that that be -- that the Europeans reduce the level of export subsidy.

There's a lot that can be done to make diplomacy successful. But I think you're right; we now need to see an acceleration of the efforts of the international community on these sanctions and we need to see a third Security Council sanctions resolution to turn the heat up on the Iranian Government.

MR. GEDMIN: Prague.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, the IAEA --

MR. GEDMIN: Please identify who you are also for the colleagues in Prague.

QUESTION: Okay. Mr. Secretary, the IAEA and Iranian Government are talking right now. Do you believe that the regime of Iran try to buy some time and maybe prevent the third resolution that you plan to pass?

MR. GEDMIN: Sorry to interrupt, but the camera is behind you so they can't see you, so you need to say your name and that you work for Radio Farda.

QUESTION: My name is Parichehr Farzam. I am the correspondent from Radio Farda to State Department.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Perfect, thank you.

QUESTION: My question, Mr. Secretary --

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Thank you very much, and thank you for your question.

Well, I think it's obvious what the Iranians are up to. It's totally transparent. They're now -- they have this dalliance with the IAEA right now and they're pretending to have meaningful negotiations in order to try to convince the rest of the world not to go forward with the Security Council resolutions.

And let's talk about what this means. The Iranians have been refusing to answer major and significant questions from the IAEA for the last two or three years. If you read the reports that Dr. ElBaradei has made public, read the public reports online, every report over the last two years is filled with "Iran refused to answer," "Iran had no information." Questions about whether or not Iran is engaged in P-2 centrifuge research, questions pertaining to the Arak heavy water reactor, questions about why Iran has not allowed all the inspectors of the IAEA in.

And so now the Iranians over the last month or two have turned back and they've made a great show. In fact, I think they're meeting today with the IAEA -- a great show of being willing to talk to the IAEA to answer questions that they refused to answer for the last couple of years that the IAEA believes are central to the question, the issue of whether or not Iran is trying to seek a nuclear weapons capability.

Our view is Iran should have answered these questions years ago. We support the IAEA. We're pleased the IAEA is meeting with the Iranian Government. If the IAEA can get Iran to answer these questions, good, but it's not sufficient. Because what is the basis of Security Council action? At the Security Council, we've said in two resolutions, sanctions resolutions, if Iran does not suspend its nuclear research at Natanz, then we will sanction. And what we said in Resolution 1747, passed on March 24th, in I think it's paragraph 13(c) if I remember it, is that if they don't suspend we will sanction a third time.

So now you have the Iranians, and even some other people in the IAEA system, saying, well, as long as the IAEA is talking to Iran about questions they haven't answered for the last couple years, we shouldn't sanction in the United Nations Security Council. That is absolutely unacceptable logic and it's not logical at all. To reward a country that has held out for so long, to reward a country for answering a few questions, we're going to turn off the sanctions? That's not possible. And the United States is making the point to everybody concerned that we hope the IAEA could be successful, we hope the Iranians will finally be truthful to the IAEA about what they've been doing, but that should not turn off the third Security Council resolution that we believe should be passed in September. This is going to be a major issue in the month of September at the UN Security Council and we intend to push it very, very hard. And we certainly will never agree that because Iran has some meetings with the IAEA we should stop all of our efforts. If we do that, we'd just reward the Iranians for continuing their nuclear research.

What did Dr. ElBaradei say in the report that he made public and he talked to The New York Times about, by the way, in the month of June? He said that Iran has accelerated its nuclear research in Iran. He said that they had added the centrifuges, being strung along in cascades. Well, that's very worrisome and that means that we ought to go ahead with further sanctions in September. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to sound off on that question.

MR. GEDMIN: Abbas, let's go to you and colleagues in Prague for the next two questions. And then if you pull back a little bit from the table, then Ambassador Burns can have a view of the folks in Prague. Abbas, the floor is yours.

MR. DJAVADI: Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Jeff. A very warm welcome to Under Secretary Nicholas Burns.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Good afternoon.

MR. DJAVADI: We are gathered here, we being representatives of the Czech Foreign Ministry, the Czech media and different language services of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. That's for starters.

Since we are talking about Iran, let's continue with Iran and then go over to other countries. Mosaddegh from Radio Farda, please introduce yourself.

QUESTION: Mosaddegh Katouzian, Acting Director of Radio Farda. I won't take much of your time, but the first question that I'd like to ask is do you see the status of the talks between Iran and U.S. ambassadors to potentially become routine events with established protocols, for instance? And because of the lack of time, I ask my follow-up also. Has the status of Iraq-based Mujahedeen-e Khalq organization, MKO, that is on U.S. State Department's terrorist organization list, been discussed in Baghdad talks or could be discussed in the upcoming talks between Iran and U.S. ambassadors?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, the answer, I think, to your question from my point of view is that the talks will last as long as they're useful. And the talks are all about security. Our Ambassador, Ryan Crocker, our Ambassador to Iraq, has met with the Iranian Ambassador to Iraq a couple of times in recent months, and all of the issues pertain to the lack of efforts by the Iranian Government to contribute positively to security in Iraq itself. The fact that Iran has not stood up for the type of plural, multiethnic solution that we think has to be behind a successful government in Iraq, the fact that Iran has not used its influence to stop the terrorists who come across Iranian borders into Iraq, and also because, as you know, our President and our military leadership have said many times over the last eight months that we believe Iran is supplying sophisticated IED technology to Shia militant groups and those groups in turn are using them to attack and kill and wound American soldiers.

So we have a lot of -- a lot to talk about, but it all pertains to security. We want to see a change in the behavior of the Iranian Government and the actions of the Iranian Government inside Iraq itself.

MR. DJAVADI: Okay, the next question is -- sorry.

MR. GEDMIN: I'm sorry. Did he get -- did we get (inaudible)?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, I'm not at liberty to, you know, declare publicly everything that's been discussed in private talks in Baghdad, but I can tell you that the American position on the MEK has not changed in any way, shape or form.

MR. GEDMIN: Abbas, back to you.

MR. DJAVADI: Kambiz.

QUESTION: This is Kambiz Tavana. I'm the Deputy Director of Radio Farda. I had the privilege of interviewing Under Secretary Burns just a couple of minutes ago.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Right.

QUESTION: My question is two weeks ago there was a segment in Iranian television, has been repeated three times following with a discussion. It was filled with examples that when Pakistan wanted to achieve nuclear bomb, the people were thinking that we would rather starve now and get the nuclear weapon as soon as we can. At the same time, the examples that was in that segment means that the North Korea made the nuclear bomb, overcome with the whole isolation, and in the end got a very good deal and got everything he wanted and still has his nuclear capabilities in some level.

What is the good example that because we can to the Iranian people to find out what this really means that the Iranian Government is now acquiring nuclear weapons?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, first of all --

QUESTION: The whole example that they -- that has been set for them on the India after 30 years of some kind of sanctions because of their nuclear activities, in the end they get a deal with the United States. Pakistan has --

MR. GEDMIN: Kambiz, I'm going to interrupt you because you already had 30 minutes with this gentleman.

QUESTION: Yes.

MR. GEDMIN: And I think the question has been posed. But I'm going to jump in, Nick, and amplify that, or maybe elaborate a little bit, if Kambiz allows me.

Abbas, who is sitting there, two to his right, who is moderating discussion in Prague, reported to us in Prague (inaudible) a conversation he had with his niece in Tehran by telephone, 22 years old. Abbas, correct me if I'm wrong. Your niece said to you, her uncle, and he made clear that she is not pro-regime, she is anti-regime, she is liberal and pro-democracy at heart -- she said, "You know what I don't understand? How come India and Pakistan and Britain and Israel and all of these other countries, for sake of argument, are allowed to have a bomb, and not us?" I just want to put that in as a complement to Kambiz's question.

QUESTION: Thank you.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, the reason, I think, that so many countries, including nonaligned countries, are voting sanctions against Iran is that countries don't trust the Iranian Government. We trust the Indian Government, which has been a responsible steward of its nuclear materials, nuclear fuel and nuclear technology, and has not sold it on the black market. We certainly trust Britain and France, two nuclear powers. We don't trust Iran. I think the IAEA would be the first to say that for 18.5 years Iran lied to the IAEA -- it is now public knowledge -- about the secret nuclear research activities that respective Iranian governments have undertaken.

We certainly don't want to see an Iran that is violating Security Council resolutions and arming Hezbollah and Hamas and the Shia militants in Iraq with nuclear capabilities. We don't want to see that kind of impact on the balance of power in Europe -- in the Middle East, excuse me.

And so the answer, I think, to the question why some countries and not Iran is because Iran's foreign policy is so mercurial, so violent and so destructive that no one wants to see a government of the type of government led by Ahmadinejad in possession of nuclear weapons. It's as simple as that.

And I do -- I said on Radio Farda this morning I hope the Iranian people understand this is not about denying them civil nuclear power. The whole basis of the P-5 proposal that we made a year and a half ago, and it's still on the table, is that we will form a consortium -- Russia and China and Europe and the United States -- we will build a civil nuclear power system in Iran, we just won't give the Iranian Government access to enrichment and reprocessing technology. Those services would be done in Russia or Germany or France, someplace offshore, but nuclear fuel would be brought in and spent fuel would be taken out.

And if the problem is that the Iranian people need electricity production, that's a major need, we're willing to help build that system for them. But we're not willing to subsidize or look the other way or agree to the creation of a nuclear weapons capability. It's just not in the cards. And I think it's very important that the Iranian people understand that South Africa is voting against them, and Indonesia is, and India is, and Brazil. They've got four countries supporting them -- the "Gang of Four." They've got Syria supporting them. They have Belarus supporting them -- Iran. They've got Venezuela and Cuba. That's it. Nobody else will stand up for the Iranian Government in the IAEA or the UN or anyplace else in the world. That is highly significant. This is not just the United States saying no nuclear weapons; it's the entire international community and every leading country.

Now, you asked what's a good example for Iran. South Africa is a good example. South Africa, under Mandela, said no to nuclear weapons. Ukraine is a good example. Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in 1993 and '4. Belarus -- not under Lukashenko, under his predecessor, Shushkevich -- gave up nuclear weapons. And Kazakhstan gave up nuclear weapons. Those are all good examples for the Iranians: give up the ability and the plan and the strategy to become a nuclear weapons power, and understand that the rest of the world does not want to see this happen.

MR. GEDMIN: Nick, thank you --

MR. DJAVADI: If I may take --

MR. GEDMIN: Abbas, if -- sorry, you want one more, Abbas?

MR. DJAVADI: If possible, let's have one more question this time on Iraq.

MR. GEDMIN: Go ahead, do so. And then we'll bring it back to Washington. Abbas, go ahead.

MR. DJAVADI: Okay, go ahead.

QUESTION: Hello, Ambassador. My name is Kathleen Ridolfo. I'm the Iraqi analyst here at RFE/RL. I wanted to ask you about increasing Iranian influence in southern Iraq because we know that Iran and its proxies are increasing their presence in the south and we've had a series of assassination attempts. We've had two governors killed in the last two weeks. We've had some aides to Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani who have been killed. His offices have been attacked. And it appears that there is an Iranian role in this, and I'm wondering if you can comment on this in the context of the Baghdad talks. Is there any feeling on the part of the State Department that Iran is listening, is engaged, is serious about making a change in its relationship with Iraq?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: I said on Radio Farda this morning that we would -- we can only and would only judge the Iranians by one thing: what they do, not what they say. And so the whole purpose of these talks that Ambassador Crocker has been holding is to say to the Iranian Government we're willing to sit down with you, we're willing to have an open and active dialogue on this question of security, but that's the agenda. We're not going to talk about other issues in that particular venue. And we're going to judge the Iranians based on whether or not they do the right thing, which will be to fight against the terrorist groups that are in Iraq, including the Shia terrorist groups that are attacking both the Iraqi army as well as American soldiers and others.

And frankly, I don't think we've seen the type of response from the Iranian Government that we would have liked. Now, we'll continue the talks in the hopes that we'll see a change in behavior. But that is the agenda, and the Iranians have to know that that is how they're going to be judged, not just by us but by the Iraqi Government. There's a third government involved in these talks. It's Iraq. They're at the table. Foreign Minister Zebari has been to a number of these meetings, and I think that the Iraqi Government has been unhappy with the fact that Iran has played such a pernicious role in arming the Shia militant groups.

MR. GEDMIN: Kathleen, thank you. Abbas, we're going to bring it back to Washington for two, please, and make sure you have a microphone. Here at the table and over there at the back row.

QUESTION: Thanks very much. Ilan Berman with the American Foreign Policy Council. I had two questions. I'll take the liberty of asking them both. You can answer one -- hopefully one, hopefully more.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: I'll choose the best one. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Yeah, best one. Okay. One is a question about timing. We've heard over the last year and a half or so a series of often contradictory assessments, intelligence assessments, about how far out Iran actually is from the threshold, from the point of no return, whatever you want to call it. Obviously, that is an extremely important position and milestone because it informs everything that we're doing now with sanctions and with diplomacy. And that has -- that discussion about sort of exactly how far out we are has been somewhat muted in recent months. And as much as you can, if you could talk about what the State Department sees as the time horizon that we have to accomplish all the things that you're doing on Iran. That's the first question.

The second question has to do with the nuclear -- the 123 agreement with India. As all of us know, India is a pretty substantial supplier of refined petroleum to Iran. It supplies about 13-14 percent a year. Has there been any discussion, I certainly know that the Indian Government when I spoke with them earlier this year is not interested in these discussions. Has there been any discussion from your part with them about the idea of linkages, about the idea of a quid pro quo in terms of putting the squeeze on Iran on that front? Thank you.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Ilan thanks very much, both good questions, both difficult ones. On the first question of when the international community believes that Iran will become nuclear capable, I am going to leave that to our intelligence community; that's an intelligence assessment that our intelligence community has made in open congressional testimony. The Director of National Intelligence did that a couple of months ago. I am not an intelligence analyst, and I think questions like that are best left, and the type of precision that you're looking for is best left to the U.S. -- the DNI and its role in briefing Congress.

But I would say this, we're worried about, of course, the continued efforts of the Iranian Government to proceed with nuclear research at Nantaz. ElBaradei -- Dr. ElBaradei reported that those efforts had -- when he reported in May, June, had accelerated. And we've obviously, along with many other governments, got our eye on that question and are looking at it very carefully. We believe that we do have time for diplomacy. I will not put a date on it because that's not my job. It wouldn't be right for me to do it. But we have time for diplomacy.

We believe that diplomacy is the best way to resolve this problem. Our strategy is a diplomatic one and it involves offering negotiations to the Iranian Government, which they have turned down. It also involves economic pressure and financial leverage against the Iranian Government because of what it continues to do to try to build a nuclear weapons capability. And I believe that we're still right to practice diplomacy. We have time left for it. We should exhaust diplomacy in this instance and we're trying very hard to do that.

On your second question, we are very pleased to have finished the nuclear talks with India, the so-called 123 agreement. This is an historic agreement. It's going to put India's nuclear facilities under international IAEA safeguards for the first time since the creation of the India nuclear program in the 1970s. It's going to bring the soon-to-be-largest country in the world into the international nonproliferation mainstream. It's going to have environmental benefits, because right now the Indians get about 3 percent of their energy from nuclear power. They hope to increase that to 20-25 percent in the next generation. And as India and China are major emitters of carbon gases, it's going to be important for us to help the Indians to have more clean energy technologies, so there are a multiplicity of benefits to the United States. We're very pleased to have had the congressional -- bipartisan congressional support on the Hyde Act that was voted successfully last December and we look forward to completing this process with another congressional vote, say, at the end of 2007 or early 2008.

It also reflects the changing nature of America's relationship with India. I think it's one of the largest strategic moves that our country has made and it's been bipartisan, the strategic partnership with India. President Clinton began this in the mid-1990s. President Bush has essentially doubled the bet. One of his major strategic priorities has been to form this new relationship with India. It's going to be a global partnership and it's going to help the United States to maintain the peace around the world. So we believe there are many benefits to this.

There is no quid pro quo in essence here concerning Iran. We published the text of the agreement with India, put it on our website three weeks ago. You can read it and you'll see what it is and what it isn't. We do, of course, counsel India as we do Japan and South Korea and the Arab countries and the European countries to limit their economic involvement with Iran. We counseled all of our allies to do that.

India has a relationship with Iran, which by and large, looks a lot like the Japanese relationship with Iran and the German and Italian relationship with Iran. And our message to all those countries, India included, is Iran's not a safe bet for investments. It's a country under Chapter 7 sanctions. They'll be future sanctions resolutions to further limit international economic engagements. So our advice to India, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea is reduce your economic exposure with Iran, don't trade -- don't invest in the oil and gas sector. Congress also feels very strongly about that. Participate in the sanctions against Iran and send a message that we don't want them to become a nuclear weapons power.

So I don't see a need to single out India, but I think India is in that large group of American allies that have diplomatic and economic relations and we think -- we'd like to see all those countries pull back on their economic relations with Iran.

QUESTION: Okay, thank you.

MR. GEDMIN: Let's take here, and then we're going to go back to Prague. Roman (ph) hang on, we'll come to you eventually.

QUESTION: Hello, I'm Heather Moore from the Central News Room. I just returned from a trip to Minneapolis this past weekend and I saw a lawn sign that is part of my question and it's the first one I've seen like this. It said "Stop Iran Invasion Planning Now." My question was originally going to be how -- because you said earlier you're hoping to solve this with diplomacy -- and my question the gentleman just asked which was how long are you willing to let diplomacy work out until you do something else. What comes after if diplomacy fails? What is at the end of the timeline in the State Department's planning?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, Heather, thank you very much for the question. I was State Department spokesman ten years ago. I learned a very important lesson: never answer a hypothetical question.

QUESTION: Okay.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: I'm not going to answer your hypothetical question, but I'll try to answer the first part of it and say this, nobody should doubt that we're focused on diplomacy. We have spent the last two-and-a-half years focused on diplomacy with Iraq -- with Iran, excuse me -- specifically dating back to February 11th of 2005 when Secretary Rice announced that the United States would be working with the European Union allies to support their then-negotiations with Iran. Since then we've created this large international coalition which includes Russia and China, the European countries and the U.S. We've made the offer to negotiate; that's the first concentric circle.

The second is we've pulled in almost every other major country in the world to support our strategy at the UN and the IAEA. I personally have been, I think made 20 trips to Europe and Asia to be involved in these negotiations, not directly with the Iranians obviously because they haven't come to the table, but to work with the Russians and Chinese and the Indians and the Europeans to stimulate diplomatic talks with the Iranians and we have dedicated ourselves to it. We believe it's the right thing to do. We have some time to make diplomacy successful. We know that diplomacy is a combination of offering as we have to help Iran cope with its electricity shortages by helping to build a civil nuclear power system -- the carrots if you will -- but also being willing to sanction and to increase economic pressure on Iran should that be necessary, and it's definitely necessary.

What have we gotten back from the Iranians? We've gotten back a series of no's, particularly since Ahmadinejad's inauguration in August of 2005. And so Iran is a country that can't -- hasn't learned to say yes. It's really quite extraordinary. If you see all of these NAM -- Non-Aligned Countries and all the current five countries saying the same thing to Iran, "Please, come and negotiate. Let's talk this out. Let's be reasonable. Let's hear your complaints. Let's sit down" -- in the case of the United States and Iran -- for the first time in 27 years -- "and have a meaningful set of discussions." And the Iranians have said no to all of that, which has given us no alternative but to go forward with economic pressure and sanctions as we've done in the UN Security Council. So frankly, I think the United States has made a good-faith effort. I believe we should continue that effort. I think we should stay focused on diplomacy, and as I said before, exhaust diplomacy.

But President Bush has been very clear, and many senior members of both parties of the Congress have been very clear, the United States ultimately has a variety of options, including -- of course we've never taken the military option off the table, but we certainly prefer and are dedicated to a peaceful diplomatic solution. And I think that will be the focus of the diplomatic -- of the international efforts, diplomacy, over the coming months as we try to get the Iranians to accept our offer to negotiate.

I'm not sure the Iranian people know -- and this is where RFE/RL and Radio Farda are so important -- that their country has actually turned down, three specific times in the last year and a half, this offer to negotiate. And I said on Radio Farda this morning, "It's really important that Iranians know we're not trying to deny them civil nuclear power. We're just trying to deny Ahmadinejad nuclear weapons, which every sane and logical person understands would be a huge blow to a future of peace in the Middle East."

MR. GEDMIN: Abbas, we're going back to you, but we're in the home stretch now. May I ask you, please, to take three -- make them very brief and bundle them together, three brief together.

MR. DJAVADI: Okay. And the plan -- I have a long, long list, but Akbar Ayazi from Radio Free Afghanistan.

MR. GEDMIN: Three.

MR. DJAVADI: Three, okay. And then Irina, and then the third person here is -- who knows, where is she? Akbar, please start. And then let's bundle everything together then.

QUESTION: I will be brief.

MR. DJAVADI: Very brief, please.

QUESTION: Sure, okay. Secretary Burns, thank you very much. I am Akbar Ayazi, Director of Radio Free Afghanistan. From our activities, interaction, call-in shows, letters, reports that we have with the listeners, there is an indication and there is this confusion among the Afghans in regard to the war on terror because the war on terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan seems to be confusing people as far as the United States policy is concerned. And what I'm saying is that the cross-border activities are confusing the Afghans because they're both allies on terror of the United States and the rest of the world, but there are all reports pointing out that the main base for terrorists' nests is in Pakistan. But we still make statements in support of Pakistan, so the Afghans are confused. Are we the true allies of -- in war on terror, or is Pakistan the true ally in war on terror because every report shows and indicates that is coming from that side?

MR. DJAVADI: Thank you. Now, I have problems, I'm sorry, to bundle all these three questions together because one was about Afghanistan, one is going to be most probably about Russia, I guess, and then back to Iran.

MR. GEDMIN: Nick Burns has seen it all, bundle away.

MR. GEDMIN: Okay. Irina, please.

QUESTION: Thank you. Irina Lagunina with RFE/RL Russia Service. I want to return back to Iran to some extent. Russia recently took a tougher stance on Iranian nuclear program, which was considered to be a pretty favorable move by both the United States and the European Union. But to what extent this conflict with other discussions on other sensitive issues with Russia, like weapons and ammunition trade with Iran and Syria and Russian revision of Gorbachev/Yeltsin-era arms control treaties and Russian threats to retarget the missiles in Europe and all major other developments? And basically, what is your assessment of those developments in Russia? Thank you.

MR. DJAVADI: Golnaz, please.

QUESTION: Golnaz Esfandiari with the central newsroom of Radio Free Europe. You said earlier today that the third round of sanctions against Iran are going to be tougher than the previous ones. What kind of sanctions should we expect and will the U.S. put Iran's Revolutionary Guard on the list of terrorist organizations?

MR. GEDMIN: Ambassador Burns, you have material to work with.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Very good. On Afghanistan, the -- both Afghanistan and Pakistan are critical countries in the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban on the Pakistan-Afghan border. And what we need to see is effective cooperation among the United States, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to get at the safe haven of al-Qaida and the Taliban inside the Pakistan border and also to be effective as our three militaries work together to try to deny them that safe haven and also, to combat them when they come across the border into Afghanistan, attack the Afghan National Army or the U.S. forces in the eastern part of the country.

Pakistan is a critical ally of the United States. President Musharraf has up to 100,000 Pakistani troops at the border. He has tried very hard. We don't question his will, but we certainly are looking for a greater measure of effectiveness, and we've made that very clear, publicly and privately as well. But the trick is not to blame one country or another. The key thing is to try to accentuate our military effectiveness, the three of us together, and also the effectiveness that we can work inside our NATO alliances with all the other NATO countries present in Afghanistan itself.

I am not pessimistic about Afghanistan. There are tremendous problems facing that country, but the government of President Karzai has done very well to slowly expand the authority of the central government into the provinces, where that had not been the case before, and to make sure that the Afghan National Army is training in the numbers that they need to constitute an effective fighting force. We have 27,000 American troops in the country. We have an equal number of European troops. There's a major international effort being made and I don't think we should be unduly pessimistic about the staying power of the United States because we're going to stay for as long as the Afghan people want us to stay to deal with this problem.

On the second question of Russian policy towards Iran, I think it's interesting that Russia continues to announce delays on the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, delays in the delivery of Russian nuclear fuel. That is certainly positive and we appreciate the fact that Russia has voted twice for the sanctions resolutions against Iran. But it is inconsistent for Russia to sell arms to Iran while Iran is under Chapter 7 Security Council sanctions. Iran is an outlaw state funding all of these terrorist groups in the Middle East and arming them. And so we've made the point to Russia and China, we believe that they should stop selling arms to Iran, and we'll continue to make that point. In general, I think the Russians -- the Russian and American governments have cooperated fairly well on Iran and fairly well on the issue of North Korea. And I think on those two issues, on nonproliferation, Russia and America are partners as we are on counterterrorism.

But there are a number of differences between us, particularly given Russian -- concerning Russian policy towards countries nearby, whether it was the cyber attacks against Estonia or the pressure put against the Georgian Government, the unexplained dropping of a bomb by suspicious aircraft 10 days ago in Georgia itself the United Nations Security Council is now talking about. These are real problems and we're happy to strengthen our relationship with the Government of Estonia and the Government of Georgia to let them know that these are truly sovereign, independent countries and they shouldn't have to be the subject of provocation by any government.

On the third question concerning the Iran sanctions resolution, well, the first two resolutions did a few things against Iran. They focused on the issue of export credits. We hope that those can be brought down to a level of zero so no country will subsidize trade with Iran. We hope that it will be -- it will continue to be a process in the third resolution of sanctioning the ability of anybody involved in the Iranian nuclear industry to travel outside Iran or to study outside Iran.

And we certainly believe the arms provision should be strengthened. It's now prohibited for Iran, prohibited by the UN, to transfer weapons to any group outside of Iran. Iran has been systematically violating that, by the way, a point we'll make when the debate begins in the UN Security Council. And we'd like to see further pressure on Iran to prevent it from being able to finance and undertake further nuclear research.

So I can't be more specific than that because it's not my interest to be more specific than that, but I can tell you we're aiming for a tougher resolution. And it stands to reason that this third resolution should be tougher. That's what the P-5 countries agreed when we embarked on this process a year and a half ago.

MR. GEDMIN: Alas, forgive me. I'm going to bring this to Washington for one final question. Roman, that's yours and if you would be brief.

QUESTION: Roman Kupchinsky, Radio --

MR. GEDMIN: Microphone right there, and say it again, Roman.

QUESTION: Roman Kupchinsky, Radio Free Europe. Recently, Turkey signed an agreement with Iran to develop the natural gas industry and to provide gas for the planned Nabucco pipeline. And the European countries are trying to diversify away from Russia in terms of their gas supply, and they've counted on Nabucco as one of the main sources of this diversification away from Russia. What is the policy of the State Department on the Nabucco line and on Turkish gas entering into the Nabucco pipeline?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, our policy, the U.S. Government's policy, is that countries should not be stimulating their companies to be involved in oil and gas investment in Iran.

It's inconsistent with Security Council resolutions and the spirit of those resolutions. It sends a conflicting message to the Iranian Government itself and we've made that clear to all of our friends in Europe, in the Middle East and in Asia. It's also true there is national -- there are natural gas options and oil options for countries that are in Europe or the Middle East. Turkmenistan is one, Kazakhstan is a second. It's not as if Iran is the only country in the world that produces natural gas. It's not.

Third, I should say that the United States Congress is very actively debating this issue. The Iran Sanctions Act has been in the book now since '99. It prohibits, well, it promises American sanctions against any company that would invest more than $20 million in Iran's oil and gas sectors, and I know there are efforts being made right now by the Senate and House to strengthen the Iran Sanctions Act, a fact that we've made clear to our European, Middle Eastern and Asian allies.

And again, we have to make diplomacy succeed. If countries around the world want diplomacy to be the way to resolve the problems of Iran's nuclear problem, then it has to be a harder-edged tougher diplomacy and it has to have some teeth: sanctions, true sanctions; sanctions that will make it difficult for the Iranian Government to proceed with its nuclear program. And we need to see strength in Europe and strength in some of our allies in Asia to add to that diplomatic effort and to agree to take these measures to advise their companies, don't do business as usual with Iran.

Sometimes when I -- you know, when I -- my colleagues in the American Government make these representations to our foreign colleagues, a proverbial answer comes back, but, you know, our companies will suffer; we'll lose investment opportunities. And I say every time, our companies lost every investment opportunity back in 1979 and we have had no trade or investment since. We have the paid the price here in the United States. I'm certain some other countries in Europe and Asia, allies of ours, will pay the price as well to make diplomacy successful.

We're not going to be successful in diplomacy if we send conflicting messages. And right, now some of our friends, by allowing and encouraging their companies -- the Government of Austria comes to mind; likely supported a major energy deal by an Austrian company with the Iranians. That was wrong. Now we told the Austrian Government, are you part of the solution here, are you sending the right message that the UN Security Council wants you to send, or are you going to look away just because you want one of your companies to enhance profits?

What's at stake here? What's at stake is that the most radical and dangerous government in the Middle East wants to become a nuclear weapons power. That will change the balance of power in Europe. That will affect every Arab ally of the United States. It will affect the state of Israel, and is not what the United States is willing to see happen. And so we have a very tough-minded policy towards Iran. And if we're -- if diplomacy is to succeed, we need help. We need help on the sanctions issue, and particularly in oil and gas, and we would like to see that help come from our best friends in the next few months. So thank you for giving me the soapbox to stand on.

(Laughter.)

You can see how much conviction we have in our government that it's wrong for our allied governments to encourage or look the other way as their companies seek a normal relationship with a government that's an outlaw government, the Government of Iran.

MR. GEDMIN: Roman, thank you, and Nick, thank you very much. You have been generous with time to have been here this morning with us to do a Radio Farda exclusive interview. I want to thank the colleagues in Prague, including those who were patient and didn't in actively in the conversation with the colleagues here in Washington. And Nick, finally from our part, we think that we had a pretty good audience here for you today, but I'm reminding everybody we have 28 languages and we reach about 35 million people. So all those folks there going back to their studios, I think it was a very important message that many people from Russia to Iraq to Afghanistan and Ukraine will appreciate your candor, your directness. Thank you very much.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Thanks, Jeff. Pleasure to be here. Thank you, everyone. Thanks everyone in Prague, as well.

MR. DJAVADI: Thank you from Prague. Thank you and we really appreciate your time, Under Secretary.

(Applause.)

ENDS

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