UN-Truth

In an interview published today in the Italian newspaper La Stampa, in which he was asked whether he was concerned about Iran’s nuclear program, UNSG BAN Ki-Moon said: “Yes, I’m very worried about Iran’s nuclear progress.”

Reuters news agency is reporting from Rome that BAN also said “he had met Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad briefly during the recent U.N. General Assembly, and was prepared to meet him privately if necessary. ‘I have said with great urgency on many occasions that the differences can be resolved through peace, through dialogue; a war or military action is not desirable in any way’, Ban said”.  The Reuters report on BAN’s interview in La Stampa is posted here.

Yesterday, in advance of further discussion next week in Europe of a possible third round of sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council, the U.S. went ahead and imposed its own new sanctions.

[The new U.S. sanctions, according to the NY Times today, "designated the Quds force of the Revolutionary Guard and four state-owned Iranian banks {Bank Melli, Bank Mellat, Bank Saderat and Bank Kargoshaee} as supporters of terrorism, and the Guard itself as an illegal exporter of ballistic missiles ... But it also reflected some caution by an administration that has also accused the Quds force of aiding Shiite militia attacks on American soldiers in Iraq, and has even detained some Quds force members there, but has resisted calls for retaliatory strikes inside Iran ... The administration clearly hopes to enlist allies around the world in its new, tougher stance — in part because the United States, having maintained its own stiff sanctions against Iran since the Islamic revolution in 1979, does not have much leverage left itself. The administration hopes its influence can turn Iran into a political and economic pariah from which more foreign institutions will shy away ... The United States is not accusing the entire Revolutionary Guard Corps of being a terrorist organization, a step advocated by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York ... But Thursday’s announcement is still an ambitious attempt to squeeze the upper echelons of the Iranian government, including the Ministry of Defense.  It is the first time that the United States has tried to use the terrorist label and the sanctions associated with it to isolate or punish another country’s military..."
The NYTimes report on the new U.S. unilateral sanctions imposed on Iran is here.]

The Associated Press reported from Tehran on 11 October that Iran claimed to have given required answers (at least some) about Iran’s nuclear program to a visiting team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA): ” ‘In these long talks, the Iranian side presented an additional explanation about its P-1 and P-2 centrifuges to remove remaining ambiguities and questions’, the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Iran’s deputy nuclear negotiator Javad Vaeedi as saying … IAEA Deputy Director-General Olli Heinonen headed the U.N. delegation that met with Vaeedi’s team…” The AP added that IAEA inspectors were “allowed to revisit a heavy-water reactor under construction outside Arak in central Iran that has been off-limits since April”, and that “IAEA chief Mohamed El-Baradei praised Iran’s cooperation with the agency in September as a significant step, but urged Tehran to answer all questions — including reported experiments that link enrichment and missile technology — before the end of the year”.
The AP report from Tehran in mid-October is posted here.

Filed under: BAN Ki-Moon, Iran, Sanctions, UN Security Council