WASHINGTON, Dec 26: The United States has urged the European Union, China, Japan, and Russia to limit export credits and stop selling arms to Iran to force it abandon its nuclear programme.
Speaking to reporters after the UN Security Council unanimously enforced sanctions on Iran, US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns said Washington expects the international community to take further punitive action against the country. He noted that “10 or 11” European nations have extended substantial export credits to Iran. “We would like countries to stop selling arms to Iran. We would like countries to try to limit export credits to Iran,” he said.
Mr Burns said that while the US welcomes the UN sanctions, it would go beyond the world body to further isolate Tehran.
“We want the international community to take further action, and we’re certainly not going to put all of our eggs in the UN basket,” he said.
“We’re going to try to convince countries, especially the European Union countries (and) Japan to consider some of the financial measures that we have undertaken. We’d like to see countries stop doing business as usual with Iran,” he added.
Mr Burns said that Saturday’s 15-0 vote in the Security Council should clear the way for further steps by countries that had argued they could not act in the absence of prior UN action.
He also called on Russia and China to take “more vigorous” steps.
“Russia and China… tell us that they want to deny Iran a nuclear weapons capability,” he said. “We’d like to see an end of the business as usual; the export credits ... the military sales that are still going on.”
On Sunday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao called on all sides to resume talks on Iran’s nuclear programme, adding that although it supported the UN resolution to punish Iran, Beijing did not think sanctions could solve the problem. “We hope that the resolution is earnestly enforced, but we also think that sanctions are not the objective and cannot be a permanent solution to the problem,” he said in a statement.
The UN resolution demands that Iran end all research on uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for nuclear power plants as well as for bombs, and halt all research and development on methods of producing or delivering atomic weapons.
The thrust of the sanctions is a ban on imports and exports of dangerous materials and technology relating to uranium enrichment, reprocessing and heavy-water reactors, as well as ballistic missile delivery systems.
The measure is less restrictive than the original draft, drawn up by Britain, France and Germany, due to Russian objections. A ban on Iran’s oil exports was not considered.
But as markets opened on Tuesday, crude oil rose after Iran said it will defy sanctions and pursue nuclear research.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that the world will have to accept Iran as a nuclear country.
Iran is the second-biggest producer in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which pumps 40 per cent of the world’s oil. Iran also sits on one side of the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait ship most of their crude exports.
