The United States, Britain and France warned Iran on Thursday, September 20, that time is running out for a negotiated settlement to the showdown on its nuclear program, Agence France Presse reported. “Iran’s approach remains to deny, to deceive and distract,” U.S. ambassador Susan Rice told a U.N. Security Council meeting on sanctions against Iran, at which western nations also slammed Iran for its arms deliveries to Syria and alleged links to terrorism. Rice called on U.N. members to step up action to halt Iran’s arms shipments to President Bashar Assad’s forces in Syria. States in the region must “redouble their efforts to deny, inspect and seize illicit Iranian shipments, including transfers by air corridors,” she said. Britain’s U.N. envoy Mark Lyall Grant called the arms exports to Syria “a reminder of Iran’s hypocrisy in claiming to support freedom in the Arab world.”