BICOM

US President Barack Obama said yesterday that there was still time to diplomatically resolve the Iranian nuclear standoff with the West but that the window for such a solution was closing.

Obama made the remarks on Iran after talks with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on the eve of a nuclear security summit in Seoul. “I believe there is a window of time to solve this diplomatically but that window is closing,” Obama told reporters.

For his part on Sunday, Erdogan told Obama that he planned to visit Iran before the end of the month and said he would also talk to Iranian leaders about the violence in Syria, an ally of Tehran, according to senior US officials.

Obama is visiting South Korea for a 53-nation nuclear security summit that starts today. Iran and North Korea are not on the guest list or the agenda for the Seoul summit, but their nuclear standoffs will most likely dominate talks on the sidelines of the conference.

This morning in Seoul Obama repeated his statement yesterday saying, “Once again, there is the possibility of a diplomatic resolution that gives Iran access to peaceful nuclear energy while addressing the concerns of the international community … Today, I’ll meet with the leaders of Russia and China as we work to achieve a resolution in which Iran fulfills its obligations.”

Obama has led international efforts to isolate Iran, which include several rounds of sanctions, but Tehran has remained defiant over its nuclear programme, despite recently showing openness to possibly resuming long-suspended talks with world powers.