US today said that all options – including military force – remain on the table to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and asked Tehran to abide by its international obligations.
President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad says foolish, offensive and sometimes unintelligible things with great regularity.
What he should focus on is the failure of his government of Iran to abide by its international obligations, to abide by UN Security Council resolutions,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters here.
That failure has resulted, because of the president’s leadership in unprecedented pressure being applied to Tehran, being applied to Ahmadinejad’s government, that has resulted in diplomatic isolation, as well as extreme economic consequences for Iran. And that pressure continues,” he said.
The White House statement came just before President Barack Obama left for New York to attend the 67th annual
session of the UN General Assembly.
We, with our international partners, are regularly taking steps to increase pressure through punitive sanctions
and other means on Tehran as we continue with the effort to try to compel Iran to make that choice to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions; to abide by its international obligations; and to, through doing that, have an opportunity to rejoin the community of nations. Thus far, Iran has failed to do that,and so the pressure will continue,” he said.
And let me be very clear, as the President has been, every option available, and that includes a military option,
remains on the table when it comes to keeping the president’s commitment to Iran not acquiring a nuclear weapon,” Carney said, adding this would be one of the issues that Obama would include in his address to the UN General Assembly tomorrow.
Giving a preview of Obama’s speech, Carney said he would expect the president to address the recent unrest in the
Muslim world, and the broader context of the democratic transitions in the Arab world.
As he has in recent days, the President will make it clear that we reject the views in the video that has caused
offense in the Muslim world, while also underscoring that violence is never acceptable — a message that has been echoed by the leaders he has personally reached out to in places like Egypt, Libya and Yemen,” he said.
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