March 14, 2012
Obama: Diplomacy window shrinking
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U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on March 14. Photo by REUTERS/Larry Downing
The window for Iran to resolve its differences with the West through diplomacy is shrinking, President Obama said.
“They should understand that because the international community has applied so many sanctions, because we have employed so many of the options that are available to us to persuade Iran to take a different course, that the window for solving this issue diplomatically is shrinking,” Obama said in a news conference Wednesday with British Prime Minister David Cameron, whom he was meeting in Washington.
Obama’s remarks come a week after he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who expressed his skepticism about the efficacy of sanctions and diplomacy.
Before meeting with Netanyahu, Obama in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee made his most explicit commitment as president to using military action to stop an Iranian nuclear weapon.
Obama and Cameron stressed that Iran still had time to make more transparent its suspected nuclear program, but that Iran could not use negotiations to delay sanctions.
“Tehran must understand that it cannot escape or evade the choice before it—meet your international obligations or face the consequences,” Obama said.
