Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at a briefing this afternoon that “the least” Iran can do at its Oct. 1 meeting with the United States and its allies is to “agree to immediate, unfettered access” to its secret nuclear site. That means access to the facility itself, personnel and documents related to the nuclear facility, Gibbs said.
That’s certainly what we would hope that Iran is willing to do to engage in full transparency and to demonstrate for the world that it will give up its nuclear weapons program and ensure that whatever it does is in the peaceful pursuit of nuclear energy.
“This is an important day and an important week for the Iranians,” Gibbs said. “They have decisions to make.”
As for today’s long-range missile tests, Gibbs said he’d “lump” them in with other actions demonstrating “the provocative nature with which Iran has acted on the world stage for a number of years.”
He also said the recent rethinking of U.S. missile defense strategy had been validated by “many of the pictures that you saw in the past few hours.”
Gibbs wouldn’t discuss the possibility of sanctions, saying only that “we are focused on the meeting on Thursday.”
Understand this: There has never been a stronger international consensus to address Iran and its nuclear weapons program than there is right now.
Gibbs described that “international consensus” as an understanding that “something has to be done and that Iran has to live up to its international obligations.”
Editor’s Note: This post has been added to since it was first published.
