Eurasia Press & News
TEHRAN (FNA)- Britain says that it will pursue sanctions on the Islamic Republic’s oil and gas sectors as ‘an important part of its political agenda’.
In a Tuesday statement to the House of Commons, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Tehran’s refusal to come clean about its uranium enrichment would pave the way for imposing future oil and gas sanctions on the country.
“In respect of the prime minister’s promise to pursue oil and gas and other sanctions on the Iranian regime, I can assure (you) that remains an important part of our agenda both within the European Union and internationally,” he added.
His remarks come as in a letter to EU foreign policy Chief Javier Solana, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili urged Western countries on Monday to adopt a reasonable stance vis-Ã -vis Tehran, press tv reported.
“It is amusing that the reasonable questions we raise in the course of nuclear talks are always met with pressure rather than logical answers,” said Jalili.
Despite its inability to provide evidence in support of the allegations made about Iran’s nuclear program, the West has so far imposed three rounds of sanctions against Iran in a bid to pressure the country into halting uranium enrichment.
The UN Nuclear Watchdog’s latest report on Tehran’s nuclear activities stated that the agency found no ‘components of a nuclear weapon’ or ‘related nuclear physics studies’ in the country.
The US nevertheless claims that a recently found laptop contains information on Iran’s ‘alleged studies of weaponization’.
Iranian officials say the allegations are based on ‘fabricated data’ and have requested that the agency provide Tehran with the original documents.
The UN nuclear watchdog, however, says it is not in a ‘position’ to do so as the US has only provided the IAEA with copies of the documents.
