ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates  The Obama administration is working to keep up the pressure on Iran from its neighbors in the Persian Gulf, despite new reports suggesting that a combination of sanctions and sabotage may have delayed by several years Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear bomb.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, arriving in this Arab emirate Sunday for a four-day visit to the region, urged Iran’s neighbors to stay focused on enforcing sanctions. Many Persian Gulf states have curtailed their commercial ties with Iran, and Mrs. Clinton said she did not want these reports to be used as a justification for them to backtrack.

“We don’t want anyone to be misled by anyone’s intelligence analysis  this remains a serious concern,” Mrs. Clinton said to reporters traveling with her. “We expect all of our partners who share that concern, as these countries certainly do, to stay as focused as they can, and to do everything within reason that will help to implement these sanctions.”

Last week, the departing chief of Israel’s intelligence agency, Meir Dagan, said that Iran would not be able to produce a nuclear weapon before 2015 because of “measures that have been deployed against them.” American officials have also suggested that technical complications may have slowed Iran, which was once seen as being only a year or two away from a bomb.