The UN Security Council is considering new sanctions against Iran. The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon made the announcement in an interview with RIA Novosti ahead of his visit to Moscow due to start on March 17th.
Iran's nuclear program is one of the worst headaches the international community has ever had. The future of the Middle East Region, non-proliferation and the overall situation in the world - all are conditional on a solution on Iran. For this reason, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany have long been in intensive consultations on the possibility of passing a fourth Security Council resolution to tighten the grip on Iran.
Unfortunately, the suspicions of Tehran developing nuclear weapons are not groundless. Even though the Iranian leaders have repeatedly claimed that Iran's nuclear program pursues purely peaceful purposes, Iran has so far stayed away from transparent, predictable and large-scale cooperation with the IAEA. The last straw for the world community was Tehran's rejection of the six mediators' plan to exchange low-grade uranium for nuclear fuel enriched to 20% with the help of Russia and France. Moreover, in February 2010 Tehran began to produce its own highly enriched uranium, a move experts qualified as clear evidence in favor of Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Whether a fourth resolution will make a difference is unclear, particularly after the three previous ones proved ineffective. A variety of unilateral sanctions imposed by the US against Iran since 1979 have proved useless too. Given the situation, Russia has always called for a negotiated solution on Iran. It's clear that Iran will not be playing cat and mouse with the international for ever, particularly since it has signed the overall nuclear test ban treaty. In view of this, President Medvedev has repeatedly given it to understand that, if the worst comes to the worst, sanctions against Iran may become inevitable. But these sanctions, he said, should be smart and well-verified, so that they won't affect the civilians. This sounds more than relevant amid the worsening situation in Iran. Under the circumstances, Russia can only express regret that its backbreaking effort to settle the conflict peacefully has produced no effect.
Please rate: