By Louis Charbonneau
Berlin - The United States is urging its allies to go beyond United Nations sanctions against Iran over its atomic programme and choke off foreign investment but is meeting strong Russian and European resistance, Western diplomats said.
"A number of countries, especially Russia, feel the United States is bullying them to end even legitimate business with Iran due to the nuclear dispute," a senior Western official told reporters.
The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution in December imposing limited sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend its nuclear enrichment programme, which Western states fear will be used for atomic bombs. Iran says its programme is peaceful.
Continues Below ↓
'The US goal is to make it virtually impossible to invest in Iran' But Washington is trying to get its allies to adopt punitive measures beyond the UN sanctions.
"We are certainly interested in working not only with the Europeans, but with all members of the UN to make sure that (the resolution's) implemented in full," US State Department deputy spokesperson Tom Casey told reporters in Washington.
US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said this month European governments should curtail billions of euros of export credits available for trade with Iran. He also criticised arms deals Russia and China have with Tehran.
"The US goal is to make it virtually impossible to invest in Iran. It's not about stopping sales of dual-use technology. They're trying to keep investors out of Iran and are working hard to keep the price of oil low," said a European diplomat.
"They (the US) think that this is what will hurt Iran most and I think they're right," he added.
Several diplomats said the Saudis were cooperating with the United States to make sure there was enough oil on the market so that the price could be somewhere around $50 per barrel, a level the Saudis have said they could live with.
One of the problems for the slow pace of Europe's full implementation of the sanctions, they said, is that some states lack the legal mechanisms to implement them. Washington is pushing them to get the mechanisms in place as soon as possible.
Another US official told reporters that Washington was resigned to the fact that getting another UN resolution with tougher Iran sanctions, as US negotiators had originally hoped for, would be nearly impossible.
"We'll use this resolution and interpret it to put as much pressure on the Iranians as possible," the Us official said.
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
