Quote:
Obama said he was sticking to a two-track approach: offering to negotiate, while threatening further pressure. He said the world would welcome an Iranian decision to accept U.N. demands that it live up to its nuclear control obligations.
"And if not, then the next step is sanctions," the president said. "They have made their choice so far, although the door is still open. And what we are going to be working on over the next several weeks is developing a significant regime of sanctions that will indicate to them how isolated they are from the international community as a whole."
Obama said work to broaden economic sanctions applied by the U.N. Security Council is moving along quickly, but he gave no specific timeline. He hinted at a trouble spot, saying China's crucial vote was not assured. As one of five permanent members of the Security Council,
China, which has increasingly close economic ties to Iran, can block a resolution by itself.
Obama also said the United Nations penalties are only one part of an international squeeze on Iran, a reference to a sequence of economic strictures that could be applied by the European Union and individual countries over the next several months.
|
Is anyone confident that more sanctions are really going to affect them? The sanctions affect the people of Iran more than the leadership further increasing the dissent against the US & the west.
Quote:
|
Defense Secretary Robert Gates' spokesman said Gates thinks the United Nations should slap sanctions on Iran in "weeks, not months."
|
IF that is the route we are taking I agree. This seems like more stall tactics for Iran to buy time so the can continue their enrichment program.
Quote:
At the State Department, spokesman P.J. Crowley said the administration was setting no timetable for imposing new sanctions. Administration officials, Crowley said, are "continuing to put together our ideas," along with allies and friends.
One such idea, Crowley said, is for Iran to accept an alternative to the October proposal for swapping Iran's low-enriched uranium for higher-enriched material produced in Russia. The U.S. would be willing, alternatively, to help Iran acquire medical isotopes from abroad, thus bypassing the need for it to obtain or produce 20-percent enriched uranium.
|
Link
Would that be the same idea that Iran has repeatedly refused already? Yup, I thought so.