AFP - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday in the Emirati capital that international sanctions have made it "much more difficult" for Iran to pursue its nuclear ambitions.
Kicking off a three-country Gulf tour, the chief US diplomat also accused Iran of opposing a negotiated Palestinian-Israeli settlement to distract attention from fears it is bent on becoming a nuclear-armed country.
"The most recent analysis is that the sanctions have been working," Clinton told university students in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) capital of Abu Dhabi in a programme to be broadcast on Arab television channel MBC.
"They have made it much more difficult for Iran to pursue its nuclear ambitions. Iran has technological problems that has made it slow down its timetable," the chief US diplomat said.
"So we do see some problems within Iran. But the real question is how do we convince Iran that pursuing nuclear weapons will not make it safer and stronger but just the opposite?" she said.
Clinton has in the past said sanctions have begun to hurt Iran economically, forcing it to return to negotiations, but she has not previously said Iran's nuclear programme has been affected.
Iran says its aims are peaceful, denying charges by Israel and the West that its uranium enrichment work masks a drive for nuclear weapons.
Clinton's remarks echoed those made in Israel about Iran's nuclear timetable slowing down.
On the troubled Middle East peace process, she gave an upbeat assessment.
"Let's seize this moment while we have President (Barack) Obama, while we have progress on state-building by the Palestinians, while we do have an Israeli government that will be able to deliver a peace if they can agree to the terms."
Clinton, however, expressed concern over attempts to "destabilise" Lebanon amid tensions linked to a UN probe into the 2005 murder of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri.
"I'm deeply worried about the efforts to destabilise Lebanon," Clinton said during the taping of a television talk show. "We should do everything we can to make sure those warnings are not accurate."
A meeting with the UAE president, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, was called off after he broke his arm on Monday while exercising, officials said.
Before heading on to Dubai, Clinton also visited Masdar City outside Abu Dhabi, a special economic zone that will eventually be home to companies and researchers from around the world to develop solar and other clean energies.
As her plane landed in Abu Dhabi late on Sunday, she urged Arab states in the oil-rich Gulf to stay focused on sanctions against their neighbour Iran over its nuclear programme.
"We don't want anyone to be misled by anyone's intelligence analysis," Clinton told reporters.
At the end of December, Israel's strategic affairs minister, Moshe Yalon, said Iran's nuclear programme has been beset by difficulties, leaving Tehran still about three years away from being able to build nuclear weapons.
Clinton accused Iran of complicating efforts for Arab-Israeli peace.
"There is very little doubt that Iran does not want to see any kind of negotiated peace between the Israelis and Palestinians for its own purposes," Clinton said.
"It wants to keep its attention off of what is the big concern for the future, which is a nuclear-armed Iran with weapons that threaten its neighbours and beyond," she said.
The secretary of state also defended Obama's administration against charges it has failed to deliver on its promises to revive the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.
"The United States is committed to a two-state solution," she said, adding Washington sought a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel. "And we are pursuing that every single day."
Clinton's five-day tour is also to take her to Oman and Qatar.
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