By Elisabeth Bumiller

December 11, 2009

Source:

ERBIL, Iraq — Defense Secretary said on Friday that he expected the United States and its allies to impose more stringent sanctions against , which has been increasingly defiant in recent weeks of the West’s demands to limit its nuclear program.

“I think you’re going to see some significant additional sanctions imposed by the international community, assuming that the Iranians don’t change course and agree to do the things that they signed up to do at the beginning of October,” Mr. Gates said during a question-and-answer session with American troops in Kirkuk, north of Baghdad.

Under a deadline imposed by , Iran has until the end of this year to show progress in engaging with the West to limit its nuclear ambitions before the United States would seek new sanctions. Mr. Gates’s comments were among the first from a senior member of the Obama administration to say that tougher sanctions were now likely.

Russia and China have traditionally been reluctant to impose tougher sanctions on Iran, but the Obama administration has been hopeful that Iran’s recent intransigence would convince Moscow and Beijing to take a harsher stance.

On Oct. 1 in Geneva, the United States was cautiously optimistic about progress with Iran when Tehran signaled in talks with the United States and other major powers that it would open a newly revealed uranium enrichment plant near Qum to international inspectors. In the same talks, Iran agreed to send most of its openly declared enriched uranium outside the country.

Despite the relatively promising outcome of the talks, Mr. Obama struck a careful tone at the time and warned Tehran that he was ready to move quickly to more stringent sanctions if Iran did not do as it said. Mr. Gates’s comments on Friday were an update to tell Tehran that time had essentially run out.

Mr. Gates, as he has in the past, discounted the idea of a military strike against Iran. “You never take any options off the table, but the reality is that any military action would only buy some time, maybe two or three years,” he said.

Mr. Gates said that he anticipated United States forces remaining in an advisory capacity in Iraq after 2011, the deadline set by the Iraqi government for all American troops to withdraw from the country. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see agreements between ourselves and the Iraqis that continue a ‘train, equip and advise’ role beyond the end of 2011,” Mr. Gates said.

He added, “I suspect as we get on through 2010 and begin approaching 2011, the Iraqis themselves will probably have an interest in this.”

Mr. Gates was in Erbil to meet with , the president of Kurdistan, ahead of elections scheduled for March. Defense officials said that Mr. Gates urged Mr. Barzani to move forward and settle differences with the government of Iraq over oil rights and boundaries so that there could be a unified central government.

“This is perhaps the most worrisome issue here in Iraq as far as we’re concerned,” Mr. Gates told the troops. Nonetheless, he cited progress in recent months between the Kurds and the central government. “I think there is no question that the Kurds see their future as part of a unified Iraq, and what’s at issue is the terms at which that goes forward,” he said.

Mr. Gates told Mr. Barzani, defense officials said, that “we will not abandon you” and that the United States remained committed to Kurdistan’s autonomy within a unified Iraq.

Earlier on Friday, Mr. Gates met in Baghdad with Prime Minister of Iraq, who had put off a meeting with Mr. Gates on Thursday because Mr. Maliki had to spend hours defending himself before a Parliament outraged over a recent string of bombings.

Mr. Gates, who spent 14 hours testifying last week to Congress about Afghanistan, told Mr. Maliki, defense officials said, that “I feel your pain.”

Defense officials said that Mr. Gates told Mr. Maliki that Iraq needed to move quickly to form a unified government after the March elections, and that the country should not have a repeat of 2005, when it took five months to stand up a central government after the elections that year.