Posted on 04/30/2006 2:25:39 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The Iranian deputy oil minister said Sunday he did not believe the United Nations would impose sanctions on Iran because that would boost oil prices even higher.
"Any action like that will increase oil prices very high. And I believe that the U.N. or its bodies will not put any sanctions on oil or the oil industry," M.H. Nejad Hosseinian told reporters after talks in Islamabad with Pakistani officials over a proposed pipeline to transport Iranian gas to Pakistan and India.
The United States and its European allies have pushed the possibility of sanctions after a report from the U.N. nuclear monitor confirmed the Iranians had successfully produced enriched uranium and defied the Security Council's Friday deadline to stop the process.
Russia and China — two veto-wielding Security Council members — have opposed the possibility of such punitive actions.
Iran has not budged on the enrichment program. But it offered Saturday to allow U.N. inspectors to resume snap inspections of its nuclear facilities if the Security Council left the dispute to the U.N. nuclear monitor, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The White House rejected the offer, saying Iran must give up its nuclear ambitions and the debate must move to the Security Council.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday she believed Iran was "playing games."
"But, obviously, if they're not playing games they should come clean, they should stop the enrichment," she told ABC's "This Week."
Rice also said the United States probably would seek a U.N. resolution requiring Iran to comply with demands that it stop enriching uranium. Rice mentioned a resolution under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which means it can be enforced through penalties or military action.
"The international community's credibility is at stake here," she said. "And we have a choice, too. We can either mean what we say, when we say that Iran must comply, or we can continue to allow Iran to defy."
Enriched uranium, depending on the degree of processing, can be used either to fuel civilian power plants or to make nuclear weapons.
While Iran insists it has no plans to make weapons and does not need or want them, the United States, Britain and France suspect the program is aimed at producing nuclear warheads.
In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Iran wanted to resolve the dispute through diplomacy but warned it would not "surrender under threats and pressures."
But Asefi reiterated Iran's offer off allowing intrusive inspections if the Security Council dropped the matter. He did not comment on Washington's rejection of the proposal.
___
Associated Press reporter Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, who is also Iran's Sercretary of Supreme National Security Council, sits prior to delivering his speech to students at the Sharif University of Technology, in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, April 30, 2006. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is shown on April 27, 2006. Rice warned on Sunday the United States might take steps outside the U.N. Security Council to pressure Iran to stop its nuclear program. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov
This image dated Friday April 28, 2006, from the Israeli spy satellite Eros B, and made available by the Israeli company ImageSat International NV, on Sunday April 30, 2006, one of the first high-quality images reported to show the Kassala airport in southern Sudan. The Eros B was launched last week from Russia and will remain in orbit for up to 6-years with the purpose to track Iran's nuclear program at a time when Tehran is refusing to comply with U.N. demands to halt uranium enrichment and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is calling for Israel's destruction. (AP Photo/ImageSat)
"take steps outside of UN Security sanctions"? What on earth does Secretary Rice mean? /sarcasm on!
Does the US have a deputy oil minister? An oil minister? A Sec'y of the Dept of Energy? A Dept of Energy?
If there were such a thing, the US could make meaningless Sunday statements, too.
Should have drilled ANWR and off the Florida and California coast 10 years ago then we would be producing today.
Hell yeah, as tensions raise, the price of crude rises and countries like iran, saudi arabia and russia make windfalls.
Just bomb the hello out of iran and watch oil prices soar.
It's not too late. Even the act of drilling in ANWR would cause spot and world prices of oil to fall.
Or, if even a small percentage of Americans would cut back on driving a tiny bit each week, gas prices would plunge.
Do the math. For many the taxes they pay each year on gas equals or exceeds the income tax they pay.
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran cannot be forced to halt its disputed nuclear programme and will defy any UN Security Council resolution demanding a freeze of uranium enrichment, the country's top national security official has said.(AFP/File/Atta Kenare)
Gotta call their bluff, President Bush.
Failure to call Iran's bluff amounts to accepted extortion.
Sat Apr 29, 6:23 AM ET Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad flashes the V-sign for victory as he addresses a crowd in the Iranian city of Zanjan, 330 kms west of Tehran. Ahmadinejad vowed to never give up Iran's disputed nuclear drive as Western powers pushed for tough Security Council action against the Islamic republic.(AFP/IRNA) AFP
John Bolton, the United States ambassador to the the United Nations, speaks outside the Security Council, Friday April 28, 2006, at the U.N. Iran has defied calls to freeze uranium enrichment and is stonewalling U.N. attempts to find out whether it wants nuclear arms, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday, in a report that sets the stage for further Security Council action. (AP Photo/UN, Evan Schneider)
Ms. Rice threatens to sing the Iranian national anthem in Spanish!
You're right it's not too late and I hope that the Republican's stick with one message during the election, drill, drill, drill. Ordinary people aren't going to relate to all the fluff about "alternative fuels" but will relate to who is for and against getting more oil here at home.
This could be "Hugh and series"!
So far I don't see much difference between him and W.
A year ago our family went from 2000 gal/yr of gasoline to 600 gal/yr of diesel. Didn't help. Petrol prices/gal are still up.
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