Iran Sanctions Gain Support in U.S., World, but United Nations Is Divided

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

UNITED NATIONS — With U.N. Security Council members divided over a new resolution on additional sanctions for Iran, Governor Schwarzenegger of California signaled yesterday that American and international entities may impose their own punitive measures on the mullahs.

“We need to tighten the screws on Iran,” a Republican presidential candidate and former governor, Mitt Romney, said in Boston. “I have called for our state leaders to take action to divest our public pension funds from Iran. In the months ahead, I hope other leaders will join this effort.”

“Nothing new” emerged in the first round of negotiations on Iran in Washington last Friday among diplomats representing the top members of the Security Council, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said. The foreign ministers of those council members are expected to continue the talks at the United Nations on Friday. “Iran is not just a piece of paper, it’s a strategy,” Mr. Lavrov told The New York Sun yesterday. Russia is reluctant to impose new sanctions, and its diplomats say they are awaiting a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, expected by November, before they decide their next move. Such a strategy suggests a long process before the council can move on new sanctions for Iran.

“There are a number of treaties that we are all aware of, primarily aimed at ensuring nonproliferation,” President Sarkozy of France told reporters. “It so happens that Iran, in adopting the position that they have, has flown in the face of the letter of these treaties. And in that sense, something has to be done about that.”

On Iran, France has become the staunchest American ally on the Security Council, along with Britain, which traditionally has been pro-American. But Russia and China, as well as several non-permanent seat holders on the 15-member council, such as South Africa, have mounted stiff opposition to any significant measures to punish Iran’s refusal to suspend the enrichment of uranium, as several resolutions have stipulated. On his way to New York yesterday, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters that it would be helpful if the Iranians would “suspend their enrichment capability so we can sit down and negotiate a resolution to the nuclear issue that would give the Iranian people an opportunity for a truly peaceful civil nuclear program, and reassure the international community they’re not trying to find a nuclear weapon.”

In Washington, the Treasury Department has leaned on financial institutions around the world to end their financial dealings with Iran. Yesterday, Mr. Schwarzenegger said California would join several states that have already divested from Iran. “Last year, I was proud to sign” a bill to “divest from the Sudan to take a powerful stand against genocide,” the governor said in a statement. “I look forward to signing legislation to divest from Iran to take an equally powerful stand against terrorism.” Jewish leaders organized a large demonstration across the street from the United Nations yesterday. “You know what? I think Ahmadinejad should go to university — not to lecture, but to learn,” the Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, told a crowd of 25,000, according to organizers’ estimates. “This man has a great deal to learn about history, especially about the Holocaust and the Allied victory.”

But few at the U.N. appeared to agree with Ms. Livni, who added that the world body should “lock its doors to Ahmadinejad, with a sign saying you have no place here among free nations.”

“I understand those who oppose” the Iranian president’s appearance, “but we have to listen to allow every view,” the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, told the Sun. President Ahmadinejad “has to be given a chance to speak his mind, and then we can accept or reject, according to our views.”


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