New Iran Sanctions Read Variously
Six world powers have drafted a new UN Security Council resolution on the Iranian atomic problem. The document, drafted at a meeting in Berlin, calls for new sanctions against Iran, which has refused to stop its enrichment of uranium, as demanded by two previous Security Council resolutions. Although all of the group (the United States, France, Germany, Great Britain, China and Russia) have agreed on the new resolution, they are interpreting it differently. Washington is calling the measures “sanctions,” while Moscow has stated that they “do not bear a strict sanction character.”
The new resolution was made necessary after Iran ignored UN Resolutions 1737 and 1747, which imposed sanctions on Tehran for its refusal to impose a moratorium on uranium enrichment. Resolution 1747 specified that another resolution would follow if Iran did not react. The new resolution is co-authored by France, Germany and Great Britain. Its text will not be made public until it is discussed in New York and no official statements on it will be issued until that time.
An American diplomatic source said that the new resolution stiffens existing sanctions and adds new ones. He said that the list of Iranian officials who will not be granted visas to travel outside Iran will be enlarged, as will the list of assets to be frozen that belong to companies with some connection to the Iranian nuclear program. He added that the U.S. is satisfied with the measures. European diplomats concurred that sanctions will be toughened. Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov, who represented the country at the Berlin meeting, avoided the word “sanctions” in his commentary and stated that he measures “do not bear a strict sanction character” and claimed that harsh measures suggested by “our Western partners” were deflected. “Now that resolution envisages the involvement of the UN Security Council for the purpose of facilitating a nonproliferation procedure, and not for any political purposes,” Lavrov said.
Iran's reaction was once again calm. “Let them know that such illegal treatment will have no effect on the Iranian people's will,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.
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All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 24, 2008
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