Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Iran open to nuclear talks, Western countries call for new sanctions

Iran remains ready to engage in negotiations with world powers concerned about its nuclear programme, but only if the other parties show it due respect, its Foreign Ministry spokesman said today. Western countries called for new sanctions against Iran, but veto-wielder Russia indicated it would block new measures at the UN Security Council.

"We have always announced that we are ready for positive and useful negotiations but, as we have mentioned repeatedly, the condition for those talks to be successful is that we enter those negotiations in a stance of equality and respect for nations' rights," Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying by the website of Iran's Arabic language al-Alam television.

Mehmanparast said a report published by the International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA) yesterday with what it said was credible evidence of military aspects of Iran's nuclear work, was merely the latest ploy by the United States to slander the Islamic Republic.

"The Americans still think that to prevent a big nation like Iran from achieving its rights they should enter the wrong way and put pressure our nation and present baseless projects like the assassination plot of the Saudi ambassador in Washington, the human rights issue or pressuring the IAEA to issue an incorrect report," he said.

France said it would summon the Security Council. Britain said the standoff was entering a more dangerous phase and the risk of conflict would increase if Iran does not negotiate

The Security Council has already imposed four rounds of sanctions on Tehran since 2006 over its nuclear programme, which Western countries suspect is being used to develop weapons but Iran says is purely peaceful.

"Convening of the UN Security Council is called for," French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told RFI radio. Pressure must be intensified, he said, after years of Iranian defiance of UN resolutions demanding it halt sensitive uranium enrichment.

"If Iran refuses to conform to the demands of the international community and refuses any serious cooperation, we stand ready to adopt, with other willing countries, sanctions on an unprecedented scale," Juppe said.

In addition to UN sanctions that apply to all countries, the United States and European Union have imposed sanctions of their own. A US official told reporters that because of Russian and Chinese opposition, chances were slim for another UN Security Council sanctions resolution against Iran.

Washington might extend sanctions against Iranian commercial banks or front companies but is unlikely to go after its oil and gas industry or central bank, the clearing house for energy trade, for now.

"The reality is that without being able to put additional sanctions into these key areas, we are not going to have much more of an impact than we are already having," he said.

British Prime Minister William Hague spoke about measures that could still be imposed.

"We are looking at additional measures against the Iranian financial sector, the oil and gas sector, and the designation (on a sanctions list) of further entities and individuals involved with their nuclear programme," he told parliament.

"We are entering a more dangerous phase," Hague said. "The longer Iran goes on pursuing a nuclear weapons programme without responding adequately to calls for negotiations from the rest of us, the greater the risk of a conflict as a result."

He added that Iran's nuclear programme increased the likelihood that other Middle East states would pursue weapons.