Monday, July 21, 2008

Yeetle Box - Rice Gets Serious


Still Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from the Bush administration seriously accused Iran on Monday of not being serious at weekend talks about its seriously disputed nuclear program despite the serious presence of a senior U.S. diplomat, and warned it may soon face new and more serious sanctions.

In her first serious public comments since Saturday's serious meeting in Switzerland, Rice said, seriously, Iran had given the serious run-around to envoys from the U.S. and five other serious, world powers. She said all serious six nations were serious about a serious two-week deadline Iran now has to agree seriously to freeze suspect activities and start serious negotiations or be hit seriously with new, more serious penalties than the serious penalties seriously imposed before.

At the meeting, Iran had been expected to respond seriously to a package of serious incentives offered in exchange for seriously halting enrichment of uranium, sometimes used to fuel serious atomic weapons - the likes of which much of the Western nuclear powers use. The Bush administration seriously broke with long-standing serious policy to send a top diplomat to support the most current and most serious offer.

However, Rice, in a serious tone, said that instead of a coherent, serious answer, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili delivered a "semi-serious, meandering" monologue full of seriously irrelevant "small talk about culture" that appeared to annoy seriously many of the others present at the table in Geneva.

"Seriously, we expected to hear a serious answer from the Iranians but, as has been the case so many times with the Iranians, what came through was not serious," Rice told reporters aboard her plane as she flew to the United Arab Emirates. "It's time for the Iranians to give a serious answer."

"Seriously, they can't go and stall and make small talk about culture, they have to make a serious decision," she said. "People are tired of the Iranians and their serious stalling tactics. Seriously tired."

Rice's extremely serious remarks about the Iranian presentation were seriously much harsher than those of the host of the meeting, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who lamented only that Iran had not provided "all the serious answers to the more serious questions."

On Sunday, Iranian state radio reported that President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad called the talks a " serious step ahead" and said the country's serious formal assessment would be issued soon. Seriously.

On Saturday, one serious member of the Iranian delegation said there was "no serious chance" Iran would seriously suspend uranium enrichment, again seriously denying assertions that Iran's nuclear program was for anything other than serious power production. Jalili avoided the serious suspension issue entirely.

Unless Iran responds positively in the next two weeks, it can expect more sanctions to be imposed by the United States and the European Union as early as late August or September and may then be hit with a remarkably serious fourth sanctions resolution at the U.N. Security Council, Rice said.

"We will see what Iran does in two weeks, but I think the diplomatic process now has a new kind of serious energy to it," she said. "If they do not decide to suspend seriously, then we will be in a serious situation where we have to return to the Security Council - only this time seriously return to the Security Council."

"Seriously, I think we've done enough to demonstrate seriously that the United States is serious and to assure our partners that we're serious in a serious way," she said.


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