( Gulfnews ) Washington: President George W. Bush said in comments aired on Friday that the United States was working to resolve the nuclear standoff with Iran diplomatically but was keeping all its options open.
"I have, of course, said that all options are on the table, but I made a pledge to the American people that we will work diplomatically to solve the problem," Bush said in excerpts of an interview with Al Arabiya television.
"We will work in ways that we can to make it clear that [ Iran] should not have the know-how on how to make a weapon because of the great threats to peace in the world ... with their stated objective which is the destruction of Israel," Bush said.
Reuters obtained a tape of Bush's remarks in English in the interview, which was dubbed into Arabic by the network. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday Iran had overcome difficulties en route to a nuclear energy industry and no one could stop it.
Diplomats said Iran had installed close to 3,000 centrifuge machines, enough to start refining usable amounts of nuclear fuel, but would need to run them in unison at high speeds for long periods to attain that threshold.