The United States said Thursday it has set no deadline for its diplomatic outreach to Iran to show results, but that the administration of President Barack Obama is not prepared to wait forever for the Tehran government to agree to curb its uranium enrichment program and return to formal negotiations. The government was responding to a report by the Wall Street Journal earlier in the day that the U.S. and its European allies will seek new sanctions against the Islamic Republic if there are no signs of progress by early October.
At a news briefing, State Department Spokesman Ian Kelly said, "We're not setting any deadline. And we're not interested in setting any kind of specific or even notional time-line." He added, "We're not going to let this string out forever of course, but we don't have any timetable on it."
Senior State Department Middle East expert Jeffrey Feltman told a Senate hearing on his nomination to be Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs on Thursday, "We don't want to end up in a situation where we're taking steps that could make it harder for us to strengthen the international coalition that's focused on Iran." He added, "We want to keep the focus on Iran and what Iran is doing, and what we can do collectively in order to try to persuade Iran to take a different course."