The Iranian deputy oil minister said Sunday he did not believe the United
Nations would impose sanctions on Iran because that would boost oil prices even
higher.
"Any action like that will increase oil prices very high. And I believe that
the UN or its bodies will not put any sanctions on oil or the oil industry,"
M.H. Nejad Hosseinian told reporters after talks in Islamabad with Pakistani
officials over a proposed pipeline to transport Iranian gas to Pakistan and
India.
Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani,
who is also Iran's Sercretary of Supreme National Security Council, sits
prior to delivering his speech to students at the Sharif University of
Technology, in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, April 30,
2006.[AP] |
The United States and its European allies have pushed the possibility of
sanctions after a report from the UN nuclear monitor confirmed the Iranians had
successfully produced enriched uranium and defied the Security Council's Friday
deadline to stop the process.
Russia and China ¡ª two veto-wielding Security Council members ¡ª have opposed
the possibility of such punitive actions.
Iran has not budged on the enrichment program. But it offered Saturday to
allow UN inspectors to resume snap inspections of its nuclear facilities if the
Security Council left the dispute to the UN nuclear monitor, the International
Atomic Energy Agency.
The White House rejected the offer, saying Iran must give up its nuclear
ambitions and the debate must move to the Security Council.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday she believed Iran was
"playing games."
"But, obviously, if they're not playing games they should come clean, they
should stop the enrichment," she told ABC's "This Week."
Rice also said the United States probably would seek a UN resolution
requiring Iran to comply with demands that it stop enriching uranium. Rice
mentioned a resolution under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which means it can be
enforced through penalties or military action.
"The international community's credibility is at stake here," she said. "And
we have a choice, too. We can either mean what we say, when we say that Iran
must comply, or we can continue to allow Iran to defy."
Enriched uranium, depending on the degree of processing, can be used either
to fuel civilian power plants or to make nuclear weapons.
While Iran insists it has no plans to make weapons and does not need or want
them, the United States, Britain and France suspect the program is aimed at
producing nuclear warheads.
In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Iran
wanted to resolve the dispute through diplomacy but warned it would not
"surrender under threats and pressures."
But Asefi reiterated Iran's offer off allowing intrusive inspections if the
Security Council dropped the matter. He did not comment on Washington's
rejection of the proposal.