By DPA,
Berlin : President George W. Bush made clear that the United States would keep its options open in efforts to pressure Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment programme, following a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel near Berlin Wednesday.
“All options are on the table,” Bush said, although he called on Tehran to seek a diplomatic solution to the stand-off.
“There is a better way forward than isolation,” Bush said, but he warned that Iran could face further UN sanctions as well as the stricter implementation of sanctions already passed by the Security Council.
Merkel stressed Germany’s preference for a negotiated solution to the impasse, but she warned further sanctions, particularly in the banking sector, could be applied.
Germany has joined efforts by the five permanent members of the Security Council – the US, Russia, China, Britain and France – to put pressure on Tehran to abandon uranium enrichment and to submit its entire nuclear programme to full inspection by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).