The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, has threatened Iran with more sanctions after Tehran failed to give an adequate response to the latest bid by Western powers to induce it to freeze uranium enrichment. "Iran has a way out if they ever wish, but we will seriously pursue sanctions if they don't," Rice told ‘Yahoo! News’ and the magazine ‘Politico’. She added: "You have to hope that there are reasonable people in Iran who see this as not the way to run a country."
Tehran's latest response to a demand for the enrichment freeze in exchange for trade and technology incentives was “not a really serious answer," Rice said, adding that that the United States did not view Iran as "a permanent enemy" and had "been pretty tough with them already" by backing three sets of United Nations sanctions. "They should have felt like time is running out quite a long time ago. When you are having trouble getting banks to come in, getting investment, when export credits are going down from around the world, when you have inflation roaring, time is running out," she said.
On Wednesday, Britain and the United States said the six powers now had "no choice" but to seek new UN sanctions after Iran failed to give a "clear positive response."
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