White House says "not expecting" breakthrough in Iran meeting at UN

WASHINGTON, Sept 26 (KUNA) -- The White House said here Thursday that it does not expect "any breakthrough" in the meeting Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to hold later today with his Iranian counterpart as part of the P5+1 Ministerial on Iran at the UN.

"We're not expecting any breakthrough in this initial meeting," White House Spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

"This is part of us testing the seriousness of the Iranians, who are obviously engaging in new overtures and showing new interest in trying to resolve this very serious matter and this conflict that they have had with the international community for so long," he added.

This "has resulted in uniting the international community around the idea that Iran cannot be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon and uniting the international community behind a sanctions regime against Iran that has clearly had profound effects on the Iranian economy and that, in no small measure, is the reason why we have seen this new interest from Tehran in trying to resolve the problem," he said.

"We have long wanted, with our international partners and a basically united international community to resolve this issue with Iran, and resolving it requires Iran to, in a verifiable way, give up its nuclear weapons program and its nuclear weapon ambitions.

"How long that process might take depends entirely on the level of seriousness and cooperation that the Iranians display through substantive conversations," he said.

"We hope and expect to see progress if Iran is serious and the new government is serious about making progress," Carney remarked. (end)