ABU DHABI – Sanctions have set back Iran’s nuclear programme, giving major powers more time to persuade Tehran to change tack, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday.
“The most recent analysis is that the sanctions have been working. They have made it much more difficult for Iran to pursue its nuclear ambition,” Clinton said in Abu Dhabi, where she is on an official visit.
“Iran had technological problems that have made it slow down its timetable, so we do see some problems within Iran. But the real question is how do we convince Iran that pursuing nuclear weapons will not make it safer and stronger but just the opposite … We have time, but not a lot of time.”
Iran says its nuclear energy programme is purely for peaceful purposes. Washington has said all options including military are on the table when it comes to stopping Iran going nuclear. Analysts say Israel, known to be a nuclear power, could launch a military strike against Iranian sites in a bid to stop the programme. Clinton’s comments followed a recent assessment by the retiring chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service that Iran would not be able to build an atomic bomb until at least 2015 — a pronouncement that some analysts said could undercut the US-led drive for increasing pressure on Tehran. Iran faces a range of UN, US and European sanctions in an effort to bring an end to its enrichment activities and place its work under full supervision. Clinton, who is in the Gulf seeking to urge Iran’s neighbours to step up enforcement of sanctions on Tehran, repeated that it was important to keep the limits in place and blamed Iran for encouraging the “drumbeats” of war around the region to divert attention from its nuclear work.
“I’m aware of the drumbeats and I think that those unfortunately are being created for very cynical purposes,” Clinton said, citing what she said were efforts to destabilise Lebanon and sow further discord between Israel and the Palestinians. Gulf Arab governments share US concerns that Iran could become a nuclear weapons state. They are concerned about rising Iranian influence in the region, through Tehran’s backing for Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. “I think that there is very little doubt that Iran does not want to see any kind of negotiated peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians,” Clinton said. “For its own purposes it wants to keep attention off of what is a big concern for the future which is a nuclear-armed Iran,” Clinton said. “We cannot let that attention get diverted and we cannot let any outside influence cause a conflict in the Middle East which would be disastrous for everyone.”
