James Jeffrey, US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ambassador, was quoted by KUNA as saying that the US policy toward Iran today remains as it was a month or two months ago.

Speaking to local media in a video conference held at the US Embassy in Kuwait, he said, "It (force) is not our first option, it is our last, but it remains on the table."

The official noted that priority is a diplomatic solution through the UN Security Council to secure peace and stability in the Gulf region and in the Near East as a whole.

"More importantly, we believe that we have the time to continue the carrot and stick approach of offering dialogue and at the same time tightening sanctions on Tehran before Iran will have nuclear weapons," he said.

The U.S. official stressed his country had acknowledged Iran's right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and expressed willingness to support such a program, but the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had deemed Iran's program "illegitimate".

"What the IAEA saw in Iran repeatedly over the last few years is evidence, stark evidence, of cheating - exactly the sort of program to develop nuclear weapons," he said.

"Nonetheless, we do think they (Iranians) are moving steadily toward a more powerful enrichment capability and at some point this will give them the expertise to develop, perhaps surreptitiously, a separate program or it could give them the actual capability to enrich to the degree necessary to develop nuclear weapons."

"That is what we are afraid of and that is what we are trying to counter," he concluded.

Ambassador Jeffrey heads the Bureau of Near Eastern Affair's team on Iran policy. He was a former deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Kuwait.