Nuclear pressure on Iran

By Andrew Beatty

Date: 04/05/06

Diplomats are preparing to step up the pressure on Iran over its nuclear enrichment programme, ahead of a major meeting in New York next week.

Foreign ministers from the UN Security Council's permanent members and Germany will meet in New York on Tuesday (9 May) to try to reach a deal which could pave the way for UN sanctions against Iran.

But with China and Russia's support for the deal unclear, unilateral sanctions are not being ruled out.

Speaking during a visit to Brussels, a senior US state department official this week said efforts were focused on getting a resolution, but that sanctions could be imposed without a UN mandate if necessary.

Gordon Gray, deputy assistant secretary of state, added that if that effort did not succeed "then we would certainly look at voluntary multilateral sanctions".

But with soaring energy prices and substantial EU business interests in Iran, it is unlikely that such measures will affect the oil and gas sector.

"There has been a lot of speculation about an oil embargo, I don't see that on the cards in the near term," said Gray.

"We are going to be looking at targeted sanctions. An illustrative list of some of those would be flight bans for senior members of the regime, bans on all military sales." A freeze on foreign held assets of senior members of the regime is also possible.

Gray insisted that measures like a visa ban would not work without the EU on board: "If you just say you can't go to Disneyland but they can go to Euro Disney, I don't mean to sound facetious, but there is no real affect."

Article reports that diplomats were preparing to step up the pressure on Iran over its nuclear enrichment programme, ahead of a major meeting in New York bringing together Foreign ministers from the UN Security Council's permanent members and Germany on 9 May 2006. Ministers were planning to try to reach a deal which could pave the way for UN sanctions against Iran.