MANAMA/NEW YORK: A senior Iranian official said on Thursday that world powers oppose new sanctions on Tehran over its controversial nuclear programme, and that they will not be applied.
First Vice President for Economic Affairs Ali Agha Mohammadi told a news conference in Bahrain with Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa that “international powers oppose sanctions against Iran” and that US policy toward Iran is “unacceptable”.
“We are convinced that these sanctions will not be applied,” Mohammadi said without elaborating.
For his part Prince Salman counseled Iran to “avoid international isolation”. He called on Tehran to act with “moderation, level-headedness and rationality” in its nuclear programme.
The UN Security Council has already imposed three sets of sanctions on Iran over its refusal to halt its uranium enrichment programme, which the West says masks a bid to acquire nuclear arms.
Tehran denies the charges and maintains that its nuclear programme is solely geared toward electricity generation.
Meanwhile, envoys of six major powers held another closed-door meeting here Thursday on a new package of UN sanctions against Iran but imposed a news blackout on their deliberations, a source close to the talks said.
Ambassadors from the five veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany met for a second straight day after huddling for more than three hours Wednesday in what they described as “constructive” substantive talks on the issue.
The source said the envoys decided to step up the pace of their meetings to address Iran’s nuclear programme, but wanted to hold them away from the prying eyes of the press for now.
The six are trying to find common ground on a US draft resolution outlining sanctions against Tehran in five areas: arms embargo, energy, shipping, finance and targeted punitive measures against the Islamic republic’s powerful Revolutionary Guards, sources said.
Diplomats said they anticipated weeks of hard-nosed bargaining before a text can be brought to a vote by the full 15-member Security Council.
Meanwhile, Iran has barred reformist former president Mohammad Khatami from leaving the country ahead of a trip he planned to make to Japan for a nuclear disarmament conference, a pro-reform website said Thursday.
The Parlemannews.ir website of the reformist bloc in parliament did not provide details of any reasons given for the travel ban. Another source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the “police have informed Khatami that he may not leave the country.”
By mid-afternoon, there had been no confirmation from official media of the order.
Khatami, whose 1997-2005 presidency saw a thaw with the West under his “dialogue of civilisations,” had been invited to attend the annual nuclear disarmament conference in Hiroshima.
The former president has been the target of virulent criticism by regime hardliners since he backed former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi against incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in last June’s presidential election.
Khatami, 66, has repeatedly denounced government crackdowns on the opposition, which denounced Ahmadinejad’s re-election as fraudulent.
He has also called for the release of hundreds of people arrested during opposition demonstrations, some of whom have been sentenced to stiff prison terms.
Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=234530
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