Iran dismisses US threat of sanctions coalition

By Hossein Jasseb

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran said on Monday a U.S. threat to
form an independent coalition to impose sanctions if the U.N.
Security Council failed to act over Tehran’s nuclear program
was an insult to the council’s work.

The Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday that the U.S.
ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, had indicated
Washington was prepared to act independently with allies to
freeze Iranian assets and restrict trade if the council did
not.

“These remarks (by Bolton) are an obvious insult to the
Security Council,” Iranian government Gholamhossein Elham told
a weekly news conference.

“These remarks are just bullying and baseless remarks and
show that they (the U.S.) are not competent to be a member of
the Security Council,” he added.

The United States has called for a swift response if Iran
does not heed the Security Council’s Thursday deadline to halt
uranium enrichment.

The LA Times said Washington planned to introduce a
resolution imposing penalties soon after the August 31 deadline
if Iran’s position did not change.

But analysts say divisions, particularly opposition from
veto-wielding powers Russia and China, could delay any move.

Iran has so far shown no sign it will halt enrichment, a
process which can make fuel for nuclear power plants or
material for nuclear bombs. The West accuses Iran of seeking
atomic weapons, a charge Tehran denies.

“The Islamic Republic has repeatedly announced that using
nuclear weapons is not in our defense policies,” Elham said.

SHRUGGING OFF THREATS

Bolton said Washington was working on a parallel diplomatic
track outside the United Nations if Russia and China did not
accept the resolution, the LA Times reported.

“You don’t need Security Council authority to impose
sanctions, just as we have,” Bolton was quoted as saying.

The United States has had broad restrictions on almost all
trade with Iran since 1987.

In response to an offer of incentives made by the United
States, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany, diplomats
said Iran had hinted it might consider halting enrichment after
talks start but not as a precondition, as the offer proposed.

Iran has shrugged off the threat of sanctions, saying such
a move would push already high oil prices higher still, hurting
economies in industrialized countries more than Iran.

Iran says it will press ahead with its atomic plans which
it says are to produce electricity. It inaugurated a
heavy-water production unit southwest of the capital on Sunday,
which Western diplomats said was not a proliferation threat
itself but was part of project that could eventually have
military uses.

International crude prices remain in sight of record highs
partly because of market fears that supply from Iran, the
world’s fourth largest oil exporter, could be disrupted if the
nuclear dispute escalates.

Iran said it fired a missile on Sunday from a submarine in
the Gulf as part of wargames which analysts view as a signal
that Iran could disrupt oil shipping in the area if pushed by
an escalation in the nuclear standoff.

Revolutionary Guards commander-in-chief Yahya Rahim Safavi
also told state TV late on Sunday an un-manned Iranian plane
photographed a U.S. aircraft carrier operating in the Gulf
earlier this year.

The U.S. Navy denied any such incident. “We have the
ability to know. This incident did not take place,” a spokesman
for the Bahrain-based U.S. Fifth Fleet told Reuters on Monday.