Iran defiant against UN sanctions

Iran’s president said that UN sanctions imposed over its nuclear programme would not damage the country, and vowed to press ahead with uranium enrichment.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned that the penalties would hurt the West more than Iran.

The measures adopted unanimously on Saturday by the 15 members of the UN Security Council were the first concrete steps taken against Iran for defying a UN demand that it rein in the nuclear programme to allay suspicions it is trying to develop atomic weapons.

Iranian analysts yesterday were more cautious about the impact that the sanctions might have on Iran’s troubled economy, saying it could chase away foreign investment needed to create jobs. But Ahmadinejad predicted the United Nations would have to accept Iran’s nuclear programme.

“This will not damage the nation of Iran, but its issuers will soon regret this superficial and nil act,” he told a group of veterans from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

Addressing countries that voted for the sanctions, Ahmadinejad said the only impact of the sanctions would be ”dissolving your reputation”, he said.

Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said the resolution made his country more “decisive in realising our nuclear aims.” He said it would step up enrichment activities.

“From Sunday morning, we will begin activities at Natanz – the site of 3,000-centrifuge machines – and we will drive it with full speed. It will be our immediate response to the resolution,” Iran’s Kayhan newspaper quoted Larijani as saying.

Oil-rich Iran insists its nuclear programme is intended only to produce fuel for nuclear reactors that would generate electricity, but Washington and some allies suspect its ultimate goal is to create atomic weapons in violation of Iran’s treaty commitments.

The UN resolution orders all countries to stop supplying Iran with materials and technology that could contribute to its nuclear and missile programmes. It also freezes the assets of 10 key Iranian companies and 12 individuals related to those programs.

If Iran refuses to comply, the council warned it would adopt further nonmilitary sanctions, but the resolution emphasised the importance of diplomacy in seeking guarantees “that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes”.

Layla Chamankhah, an independent political analyst, predicted that “Iran’s international reputation will be damaged” by the dispute, but he played down the potential for economic harm from the sanctions.

“Regardless, Iran’s economy will continue in its own way,” he said.

But Hamid Reza Shokouhi, a columnist for the independent newspaper Mardomsalari, said the sanctions will reduce the confidence of foreign investors.

“At a time when the country is trying to attract foreign investors – to create job opportunities the sanctions will decrease their appetite for investment in Iran,” Shokouhi said.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini said the Security Council vote would lead Iran to change the way it deals with the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Association.

“We are not obliged and it is not expected that cooperation with the IAEA continues” as it did in the past, Hosseini told reporters.

Iran’s parliament voted yesterday to urge Ahmadinejad’s administration to revise its cooperation with the IAEA.

The US has said it hopes the resolution will clear the way for tougher measures by individual countries, particularly Russia, if Iran doesn’t back down.

The US administration had pushed for tougher penalties, but compromised to bring on board Russia and China, both of which have strong trade ties with Iran, and Qatar, one of Iran’s Persian Gulf neighbours.

Sanctions will end when the IAEA confirms Iran has complied with all its obligations, the resolution says.

Six countries trying to negotiate a curb in Iran’s nuclear program – the US, Britain, France, Germany Russia and China – offered Tehran a package of economic and political incentives if it agreed to suspend uranium enrichment. But Iran refused and rejected an August 31 Security Council deadline to freeze enrichment.