BRUSSELS, Dec 1, (Agencies): EU foreign ministers piled pressure on Iran over its contested nuclear programme Thursday, slapping sanctions on an extra 180 firms and individuals and threatening to hit out at its vital oil sector.
Expressing “deepening concerns” on the nature of the nuclear programme, the 27 European Union foreign ministers urged the bloc to “extend the scope” of current sanctions in order to strike at Tehran’s financial heart.
A statement said the ministers agreed to examine measures in particular affecting the financial system in the transport and energy sector.
Outraged by Tuesday’s storming of the British embassy in Tehran, the ministers also said they considered “these actions against the UK as actions against the European Union as a whole”.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on joining the talks that he would urge his counterparts to squeeze Iran for both its nuclear activities and mounting human rights violations.
“I hope we will agree today additional measures that will be an intensification of the economic pressure on Iran, peaceful legitimate economic pressure particularly to increase the isolation of the Iranian financial sector,” he said.
Though German counterpart Guido Westerwelle too favoured moves “to dry up Iran’s financial sources”, the crisis-hit EU is deeply split over slapping an oil embargo on Iran as well as over calls by some, including Britain, to agree an assets freeze on Iran’s central bank.
The new sanctions follow the publication last month of a new report on Iran’s contested nuclear activity by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The punitive measures target both firms and individuals involved in the nuclear programme and those linked to the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line (IRISL) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
Much of the international community fears Iran’s nuclear programme masks a drive for a weapons capability, though Tehran says it serves peaceful civilian energy and medical purposes only.
Meanwhile, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who leads global talks with Iran on the sensitive nuclear issue, reiterated a plea to Tehran to resume dialogue.
“We have put proposals on the table,” she said. “It is for the Iranians to come back and if they don’t come back and answer or at least put forward their own proposals, we have to draw conclusions.”
Urging the EU “to ratchet up sanctions” in the light of the attacks on the British embassy, Ashton said it was time “to make it clear to Iran that we are very serious”.
But that is easier said than done.
Britain, France, Germany and Sweden favour a bar on buying oil from Iran.
However, others led by economically-troubled Spain, Greece and Italy are significantly dependent on Iranian crude.
Condemns
Kuwait strongly denounces and condemns the storming of the British embassy in the Iranian capital of Tehran, an official source at the Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday.
“Such actions are considered violation to international and humanitarian laws. It is also regarded as a breach to Iran’s commitments to the Vienna agreement regarding the sanctity of diplomatic ties,” the source went on saying.
The source concluded the statement by underscoring the imperative that Iran honor its commitment to respect the diplomatic bodies and to ensurance the safety of their staff.
A new rally was to be held Thursday at a British diplomatic compound in Tehran, Mehr news agency reported, two days after it and another property housing the British embassy was stormed by Iranians.
A reporter for Mehr said “hundreds” of riot police had been deployed to the Qolhak Garden compound in the north of the capital ahead of the rally.
The new demonstration was called by “student associations” angry that Western diplomats on Thursday had visited the compound to inspect the destruction caused by Tuesday’s incursion by hundreds of protesters, Mehr said.
The European Union warned Iran on Thursday that it would take “appropriate measures” in retaliation for the storming of the British embassy in Tehran.
EU foreign ministers said in a statement that the EU was “outraged by the attack on the British Embassy in Tehran and utterly condemns it”, calling it a violation of the Vienna Convention requiring Iran to protect foreign embassies.
The EU council of ministers “also deplores the decision to expel the British ambassador from Tehran”, the statement said.
“The council considers these actions against the UK as actions against the European Union as a whole. The EU is taking appropriate measures in response,” it added as ministers met in Brussels.
US Vice-President Joe Biden said on Thursday he had seen no indication the attack on the British embassy this week in Tehran was orchestrated by Iranian authorities, but it was another example of why the country was a “pariah”.
Biden, wrapping up a three-day visit to mark the end of the US troop presence in Iraq, also played down the risk of Iran exploiting the departure of US troops by year-end.
“I don’t have any indication how and or if it was orchestrated,” Biden told Reuters in an interview. “But what I do know is that it is another example to the world and the region that these guys are basically a pariah internationally.”
Sanctions
The United States said Thursday it backs “appropriately timed” sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
“The Obama administration strongly supports increasing the pressure on Iran,” the US under secretary of state for political affairs, Wendy Sherman, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“And that includes properly designed and well targeted sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran, appropriately timed as part of a carefully phased and sustainable policy toward bringing about Iranian compliance of its obligations.”
Sherman and other US officials said there is a way to target the CBI but it should occur in a multilateral context.
China expressed concern Thursday over the situation in Iran after an attack by protesters led Britain to close its Tehran embassy and several European countries recalled ambassadors for consultations.
The mission was attacked on Tuesday by protesters angry over new British sanctions against Iran’s financial system that followed a recent UN report containing evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.
“China has noted the tough reactions made by the relevant countries over this event and is concerned over the development of the situation,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters.
“We hope relevant countries will keep calm and exercise restraint and avoid taking emotional actions that may rachet up the confrontation.”
Options
Israel does not want to take military action against Iran over its nuclear program, but at some point may have no other option, the Israeli defense minister said Thursday.
The Jewish state at this point did not intend to launch a strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, but retained the option as a “last resort,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio.
“We don’t need unnecessary wars. But we definitely might be put to the test,” he said.
Barak said he hoped that sanctions and diplomacy would pressure the Iranian leadership to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program, but did not expect that to happen.
Israel, like the West, is convinced Iran is developing a nuclear bomb, despite Tehran’s insistence that its nuclear program is designed to produce energy.
Israel says a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten the Jewish state’s survival, citing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated references to Israel’s destruction, Iran’s arsenal of ballistic missiles and its support for militant groups that fight Israel.
Federal prosecutors in Germany said Thursday they had launched a probe into reports Iran was planning to attack American targets in Germany in the event of US military action against Tehran.
Mass circulation daily Bild earlier reported that Tehran had drawn up plans to attack US forces in Germany to disrupt logistics and supply lines in the event of a conflict.
“We have an investigation on this issue,” the head of the federal prosecutors’ office, Harald Range, told reporters.
However, the head of the federal crime office, Joerg Ziercke, stressed: “We do not see any immediate danger right now.”
Turkey’s foreign minister has conveyed Ankara’s concerns about an Iranian commander’s recent remarks that Tehran will hit NATO’s missile shield in Turkey if threatened, a ministry official said Thursday.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu “verbally conveyed our concerns to his Iranian counterpart,” the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Davutoglu met on Wednesday with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on the sidelines of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation meeting in Jeddah.
Increasing tensions and Western pressure are undermining the chances Iran will cooperate with efforts to ensure it is not seeking nuclear weapons, Russia said on Thursday.
“We speak out categorically against cranking up a spiral of tension and confrontation on issues linked with Iran. We believe that this ... is fraught with severe consequences,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told a news briefing.
Lukashevich said the storming of Britain’s embassy in Tehran on Tuesday could not be justified.
Meanwhile, a recent deadly explosion at a missile base in Iran caused major devastation and will take much longer to repair than a top Iranian general has predicted, according to an analysis of new satellite photos of the site.
In commercial satellite photos released by a private Washington institute, the sprawling compound west of Tehran looks decimated, with buildings seriously damaged or completely wiped out from the November 12 explosion.
“The entire facility was essentially destroyed,” said Paul Brannan, a senior analyst at the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), which posted the images this week.
“It looks like almost half of the buildings are gone and what’s left are the skeletons of the buildings. I would call that a complete destruction of the facility,” Brannan, who wrote an analysis of the pictures, told AFP on Wednesday.
Media reports said at least 36 members of the country’s Revolutionary Guards were killed in the explosion, including a key figure in Iran’s ballistic missile program, Major General Hassan Moqaddam.
Despite speculation the incident may have been a covert Israeli or US-backed attack, the Revolutionary Guards have repeatedly said the blast that rocked the base in Bid Ganeh was an accident.
The chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, General Hassan Firouzabadi, has said the base was being used for the production of an unspecified “experimental product” that could be used against the United States or Israel.
Firouzabadi said the development of the project had been delayed by two weeks because of the explosion, but the satellite images suggested otherwise.
“I would doubt that significantly,” Brannan said of the military chief’s estimate. “The place was destroyed. You’d have to rebuild it completely. Two weeks is way too short for that.”