US-UK Sanctions: Disappointment with UN Security Council, EU

RAJANEWS - Four Western countries, in a measure which clearly attests to the failure of their attempts against Iran within the UN Security Council, have imposed unilateral sanctions against Iran.

The US, Canada, France and Britain the other day simultaneously imposed sanctions against Iran.

Experts in Tehran say the executive impacts of the new sanctions in comparison with the expectations of Westerners are meagre and their influence on Iran’s strategic calculations is none.

A summary of the imposed sanctions is as follows:

The US, according to a statement released by the State Department, has imposed sanctions against Iran’s petrochemical industry and 12 real entities.

Britain would stop all its communications with the Iranian banks as part of the new financial sanctions against Iran as of Monday. At 15 hours GMT on Monday, all British financial and credit institutions should stop their trade and financial transactions with all Iranian banks, including the Central Bank, as well as their branches and subsidiaries.

The new Canadian sanctions against Iran, as were announced by Foreign Minister John Baird, prohibit financial transactions with Iran with some exceptions. The sanctions generalize list of the banned commodities to all items which are used in petrochemical, oil and gas industries and amend the list of banned commodities for inclusion of more items which might be used in Iran’s nuclear program.

In a statement released Friday, France too called for sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran and oil purchase from the country. In fact France instead of imposing sanctions against Iran proposed sanctions.

The Elysee Palace in a statement has announced that it has written letters to the heads of state and government in Germany, Canada, the US, Japan and Britain as well as to heads of the European Council and European Commission and called for the imposition of such sanctions.

Apparently France is awaiting the decision of the European Union and experts say it is highly unlikely that Europe, due to its economic crisis, would enter into the area of sanctioning the Central Bank and refraining from purchasing oil from Iran as the US in its new sanctions has not interfered with the Central Bank of Iran.

Imposition of unilateral sanctions against our country is taking place under conditions that apparently the US, Britain and France, as the main defenders of the approval of the new sanctions against Iran, have become disappointed with the approval of an effective resolution in the UN Security Council and even in the European Union. Why? Because always the resolutions and sanctions against Iran first used to receive approval in the Security Council and then the EU and the US Congress used to approve and announce their complementary and unilateral sanctions.

Meanwhile, in the recent case, the European Union in its last week session on imposition of new sanctions failed to reach a sum-up and therefore the session was ended without achieving any result.

Also, in Germany, economic activists have expressed strong dissatisfaction with the unilateral sanctions by the European Union and said in case the sanctions are not imposed by the UN Security Council, and the European Union imposes unilateral sanctions, only European tradesmen would sustain the loss as the Russian and Chinese companies would soon substitute them. Meanwhile, the German government believed that under the status quo, grounds are not prepared for imposition of new sanctions against Iran.

The important point is that although imposition of sanctions against Iran’s Central Bank was in fact proposed by the US administration, the White House in this regard did not support British sanctions against the Central Bank and only extended its sanctions to the energy sector. However, the US Congress last year too by the imposition of sanctions on Iran’s energy sector and through focusing on gasoline sanctions which Obama referred to as the paralyzing embargo, hoped to foment social unrests in Iran which, on the contrary, resulted in Iran’s self-sufficiency in production of gasoline and even export of the strategic product.

Also France, which adopts colorful gestures on sanctions against Iran, in a strange move and without joining the sanctions announced by the US and Britain, has called on other countries to support the sanctions.