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Iran is playing for time, says Bush

U.S. President declines to specify timeline

Washington: Warning that ``time was of essence'' in the Iranian nuclear dispute, President George W Bush has said the U.S. will have to seriously pursue the issue of sanctions against the country as he believes Tehran was trying to stall and buy time.

``I'm concerned that Iran is trying to stall, and trying to buy time, and therefore it seems like a smart policy is to push this issue along as hard as we can and we are...'' Mr. Bush said in an interview to CNN on Wednesday.

After returning to Washington from the United Nations General Assembly, where he did not have a personal meeting with the Iranian President, Mr. Bush said, "... time is of essence, and that's why here at the United Nations I spoke with our allies." Mr. Bush said he took the utterances of Iranian President Mahmoud Ajmedinejad seriously. ``Absolutely, I take him seriously, just like I take Al-Qaeda seriously when they say they're going to attack us again, just like I take these extremists seriously when they say they're trying to disrupt democracy.''

He refused to get into a timeline for resolution of the Iranian nuclear impasse partly on the grounds that he did not wish to get into intelligence aspects of the subject.

Asked why it would be so bad for Iran to have a nuclear weapon when India, Pakistan and Israel had them, Mr. Bush replied that Iran promoted militias like the Hizbollah to create instability. — PTI

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