The Iranian government and parliament yesterday discussed the next steps to be taken following the UN Security Council sanctions against Tehran, the Khabar news network reported.
In a closed-door session, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki briefed deputies on developments following UN resolution 1737, which imposed sanctions on Iran for defying suspension of its uranium enrichment programs.
No details have yet leaked out from the meeting but Khabar quoted Mottaki as saying after the session that the government would follow all relevant parliamentary decisions.
The parliament had proclaimed on Sunday that it would approve a bill obliging the government to revise, reduce or even end cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Mohammad Saeidi, the deputy of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, however, told Khabar on Monday that all nuclear programs would stay under IAEA supervision.
the oil card
Iran has repeated threats that it was ready to use its massive oil exports as a weapon to defend itself if it felt necessary in an international dispute over its atomic program, the Fars news agency said yesterday.
"If necessary, Iran will use any weapon to defend itself," Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said.
The Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday to impose sanctions on Iran's trade in sensitive nuclear materials and technology, in an attempt to stop uranium enrichment work that could produce material to be used in bombs.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that those who backed the UN resolution -- drawn up by Britain, France and Germany but supported unanimously by the Security Council -- would soon regret their "superficial act."
Vaziri-Hamaneh urged European countries to prevent "inappropriate" decisions if they wanted Iranian oil to flow.
Vaziri-Hamaneh has repeatedly said the world's fourth biggest crude producer would prefer not to play the oil card.
oil crisis
Meanwhile, a US researcher said in a report made public on Monday that Iran's nuclear ambitions are motivated not just by a desire for regional supremacy but by a potentially devastating crisis in its oil industry.
Iran's image is of a muscular oil producer with plentiful reserves, but in fact it could soon face its own energy crunch owing to failing infrastructure and lack of investments, Roger Stern of Johns Hopkins University said.
Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the professor of geography and environmental engineering said Iran's oil problems have the potential to topple the clerical regime.
Stern said there was no reason to doubt US-led accusations that Iran's drive to develop nuclear energy has more sinister ends in mind -- to entrench the regime in power and fend off US military hegemony in the Gulf.
"But it cannot be inferred from this that all Irani[an] claims must be false," he added.
"The regime's dependence on export revenue suggests that it could need nuclear power as badly as it claims," Stern wrote.
Many of Iran's oil deficiencies are of its own making, he said, noting that generous domestic subsidies for gasoline have meant that Iran's national oil company is unable to make money at home and therefore needs to export as much as it can.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS