Washington: US today described Iranian President Ahmedinejad`s statements on a possible war with Iran as "outrageous" and warned Tehran of "consequences" if it did not "change its behaviour".
"Ahmadinejad has been making inflammatory statements for -- I think going on many years. I wouldn`t simply cordon off today`s outrageous statement," the White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters at his daily news briefing.
Ahmadinejad recently claimed Israel is considering starting a war with Iran by the summer, and the country has said it doesn`t take seriously Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton`s comments that the Revolutionary Guards are nearing a military dictatorship.
"I think what Secretary Clinton said about the IRGC obviously they`re a powerful force in the country that has taken actions to support Iran`s nuclear program, taken actions
to repress the universal rights of its citizens and to facilitate its state sponsorship of terror, which led the Treasury Department just last week to tighten sanctions on the IRGC," Gibbs said.
"Our policy of engagement is not for the sake of simply engaging, This is not talk for the sake of talking. Engagement is a means toward an end," he said.
"If Iran is unwilling to constructively take part in that and change its behavior, then, as the President said in the State of the Union, and as the Russians and the French and the
Americans said in a letter to the IEA today, their not changing their behavior will have consequences," Gibbs said.
PTI
