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12 January 2010
United States, Allies Exploring Further Sanctions Against Iran
Washington — The United States believes that the most effective way to convince Iran to abandon nuclear weapons efforts is to impose highly targeted sanctions against the Iranian leadership’s political and commercial base.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters January 11 who were accompanying her on a 10-day trip to the Asia-Pacific region that the six nations actively engaged in talks tentatively are set to meet about January 16 in New York to explore the kind and degree of sanctions that will best suit the emerging situation.
The six nations include the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — plus Germany, which are known as the P5+1 group. Their primary objective has been to convince Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program, which is considered by weapons experts to be an essential preliminary step in the development of a nuclear weapon. Western nations believe that if Iran were to develop even a limited nuclear weapons capability, it would have far-reaching security concerns for the Gulf and the greater Middle East, especially if it is accompanied by the development of a medium- to long-range missile.
“It is clear that there is a relatively small group of decisionmakers inside Iran. They are in both political and commercial relationships, and if we can create a sanctions track that targets those who actually make the decisions, we think that is a smarter way to do sanctions,” Clinton told reporters on a flight to Hawaii, according to published news reports.
Clinton left Washington January 11 on a 10-day trip scheduled to take her to Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea with a stop in Hawaii. In Honolulu, Clinton will meet with Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and make a major policy speech on U.S. engagement in the Asia-Pacific region.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters at a daily briefing January 11 that Under Secretary of State William Burns is traveling to Moscow and to Madrid this week for talks with the six nations as well as talks with members of the European Union.
“There may well be a P5+1 meeting coming up in the very near future. … It could be part of this trip,” Crowley added.
Diplomatic engagement has been a central tenet of President Obama in his approach to Iran, and Clinton has said repeatedly that every effort is being made to keep talks going.
“We want to keep the door to dialogue open,” Clinton said recently, though adding that “we can’t continue to wait and we cannot continue to stand by.”
Clinton told reporters that the United States has been evaluating ideas from a broad range of other countries — identifying what works, what won’t work, and what would have the most impact on changing the strategic calculation inside Iran’s leadership.
The United States is backing a proposal offered by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to ship low-grade nuclear fuel abroad for further enrichment and return for use in a Tehran medical research reactor. Clinton said this approach offers the best way to handle the needs of Iran and to build confidence that its efforts are not aimed at building a nuclear weapon.
SANCTIONS IMPOSED
Since 2006, the U.N. Security Council has imposed three sets of sanctions that are still in effect. The first set concerns sensitive nuclear materials and froze the assets of individual Iranians and some companies. The second set included new arms and financial sanctions, and the third set added further travel and financial sanctions.
The United States shut out Iran’s Bank Saderat from the U.S. financial system in September 2006. It did the same thing to Bank Melli and Bank Mellat in October 2007. The United States has also sanctioned Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, which controls the nuclear development program. And the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that would require more and deeper sanctions.
The European Union has imposed visa bans on senior Iranian officials and its top nuclear and ballistics experts. Britain froze more than $1.6 billion in Iranian assets under EU- and U.N.-imposed sanctions. Britain has also frozen business ties with Bank Mellat and the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines.
