BRITAIN and other leading international powers are to seek new sanctions against Iran after Tehran ignored demands to freeze its controversial nuclear programme.
Responding to fears that it wants to build an atomic bomb, the world's fourth-largest oil producer insists it is only seeking to master nuclear technology to generate electricity.
Kim Howells, the Foreign Office minister, said yesterday that the
E3+3 group of the European powers – Britain, France and Germany, plus the United States, Russia and China – had been left with "no choice" after Iran's "disappointing" response to their offer of an economic incentives package.
On Tuesday, Iran gave a noncommittal, one-page letter to major powers containing no firm reply to the offer to refrain from more United Nations penalties if Iran freezes expansion of its nuclear work.
Mr Howells warned that Iran would now face a build-up of international pressure unless it agreed to halt its work on uranium enrichment – a key step in developing a nuclear bomb.
He said: "Iran has a clear choice: engagement or isolation. We regret that Iran's leaders appear to have chosen isolation. The E3+3 incentives package contains everything Iran needs to pursue a modern civil nuclear power programme, which Iran's leaders claim is their aim, in addition to economic, educational and scientific assistance."
Iran has promised a "clear response" at an unspecified date, but repeated failures to hit deadlines has failed to reassure the West after the head of the Revolutionary Guards said Iran could easily close the Strait of Hormuz, a key Gulf shipping route, if it were attacked over its nuclear programme.
The full article contains 273 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
