A Western proposal for fresh UN sanctions on Iran includes a call for restricting new Iranian banks abroad and urges “vigilance” against the Islamic Republic’s central bank, diplomats said on Friday.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, Western diplomats familiar with negotiations on the draft proposal — which Washington worked on with Britain, France and Germany and then shared with Russia and China — said they were no longer pushing for an official UN blacklisting of the central bank.
The draft also calls for restrictions on new Iranian banks abroad, which would make it difficult for Tehran to skirt a global crackdown on transactions with existing Iranian financial institutions by setting up new ones.
“We will be looking for a tightening of restrictions of new Iranian bank activity overseas,” a diplomat said.
The UN Security Council has imposed three rounds of sanctions on Iran for defying UN demands it halt nuclear enrichment. Tehran rejects Western charges that its nuclear program is aimed at developing bombs and says it will only be used to generate electricity.
Another diplomat said urging vigilance about Iran’s central bank in the US-drafted proposal should be more acceptable to Russia and China than blacklisting it, which would have made it difficult for anyone to invest in Iran.
“The idea is to call for strengthened vigilance regarding transactions linked to the Iranian central bank, which the European Union and United States and others can then use as the basis for implementing their own tougher restrictions on [such] transactions,” a second diplomat said.
Only one Iranian bank — Bank Sepah — is blacklisted under an array of UN sanctions spelled out in three resolutions adopted by the Security Council in 2006, 2007 and 2008.
The council has issued warnings about two others — Bank Melli and Bank Saderat — but has not blacklisted them.
The new draft also targets Iranian shipping firms and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and firms linked to it. The measures would restrict insurance and reinsurance coverage of cargo shipments in and out of Iran, diplomats said.
It would also expand the restrictions on arms trade with Iran into a full arms embargo, including a global inspection regime similar to one in place against North Korea.
The diplomats said Russia’s initial reaction was negative.
“Russia says the draft does not correspond to their idea of what the sanctions should be and they reject many of the measures in the latest draft,” a diplomat said.
China has not reacted and has so far refused to engage in “substantive negotiations” on a fourth round of UN sanctions against Tehran. The four Western powers hope to organize a conference call with officials from all six countries to discuss the draft but have been unable to do so due to China.
Meanwhile, Iran is building a new rocket launch site a short distance from an existing complex and seems to be working with North Korea, information group IHS Jane’s said on Friday.
Construction visible from satellite imagery of the new site, near the city of Semnan east of Tehran, suggests that Iran has been collaborating with Pyongyang, the London-based defense intelligence group said.
Iran unveiled the Simorgh (Phoenix) space-launch vehicle (SLV) on Feb. 3, but has not publicly revealed the location of the rocket’s launch complex, it reported.
However, Jane’s said it had observed a new launch pad 4km northeast of the existing Semnan site on a satellite image dated Feb. 6.
The site could ultimately launch Tehran’s next-generation Simorgh rocket, it said.
Jane’s said that using satellite photographs taken on Feb. 11, as Iran celebrated the Islamic revolution’s 31st birthday, it had identified the Simorgh and Safir-2 rockets displayed in Tehran’s Azadi Square.
The respected information group concluded that Iran appears to be forging ahead with developing its missile and rocket capabilities despite US-led diplomatic pressure.
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
‘ARBITRARY’ CASE: Former DR Congo president Joseph Kabila has maintained his innocence and called the country’s courts an instrument of oppression Former Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) president Joseph Kabila went on trial in absentia on Friday on charges including treason over alleged support for Rwanda-backed militants, an AFP reporter at the court said. Kabila, who has lived outside the DR Congo for two years, stands accused at a military court of plotting to overthrow the government of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi — a charge that could yield a death sentence. He also faces charges including homicide, torture and rape linked to the anti-government force M23, the charge sheet said. Other charges include “taking part in an insurrection movement,” “crime against the
RSS