Iran faces new set of sanctions

02/08/2008| IslamWeb

Iran faces a fourth set of sanctions if it rejects incentives offered to it by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany to suspend its uranium enrichment and reprocessing programme.

The informal two-week deadline set on July 19 expires on August 2. The Security Council had already slapped three sets of sanctions on Iran over the issue.

The incentives are meant to create space for the start of in-depth negotiations with Iran to permanently mothball its enrichment programme in exchange for a package of economic and political concessions. Iran has thus far given no sign it will accept.

'Fails to win support'

Meanwhile, unnamed US officials on Friday claimed that Iran has failed to win support from non-aligned nations this week for lifting UN sanctions and removing the UN Security Council out of the dispute over its nuclear programme.

The US is not a member of the non-aligned group but learned of the negotiations from representatives of countries that are members, said officials who spoke to reporters at the State Department on condition of anonymity.

One US official said the conference, which operates on a consensus basis, had deadlocked on portions of a draft statement presented by Iran that demanded the removal of sanctions and dismissed UN authority as well as affirmed Iran's right to possess the entire nuclear fuel cycle, something world powers object to.

The official said that some members, notably Cuba, Belarus and Venezuela - who all have poor relations with the United States - spoke in favour of the Iranian draft, but other opposing countries prevailed in watering down the statement.

Copies of the draft and the final statement provided by the US officials show the Iranians unsuccessfully tried to get approval for a paragraph that said "sanctions imposed on Iran for its nuclear programme are of a political nature and should be promptly removed".

That paragraph, which also said there is "no legal basis" for the UN Security Council to be involved in the issue, does not appear in the final statement.

After the final statement was adopted on Wednesday, Iranian officials hailed it as a victory.

Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, the country's top representative to the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said it sends a "strong positive signal that the only way is negotiation and dialogue" over the nuclear standoff.

 

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The Security Council had already slapped three sets of sanctions on Iran over the issue [AFP]

 

Al-Jazeera