Iran warned on Wednesday of a fierce response and radically higher oil prices if the country were attacked, but also signaled possible progress in its five-year nuclear standoff with the West.
“Iran, if there were any kind of activity of any sort, is not going to be quiet and would react fiercely,” Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said when asked what Tehran would do in the event of an attack.
He added that oil prices, which have been driven to record levels partly because of fear about the loss of Iran’s 4 million barrel-a-day output, would rise radically if Israel or the US launched a strike.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
His comments on the sidelines of an oil conference in Madrid came as Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki raised hopes of arriving at a negotiated “multi-faceted solution” to the nuclear stalemate.
“We see the possibility of arriving at a multi-faceted solution,” Mottaki told a press conference at the UN, commenting on a revised package of economic and energy incentives.
He earlier told US media that “a new process” was under way after six world powers presented Iran with a package of measures to end the deadlock last month, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency.
The White House expressed skepticism but Mottaki’s statement was more positively received in Brussels, where EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana described it as “interesting.”
Six world powers last month came up with a solution for ending the crisis, offering technological incentives in exchange for Tehran suspending uranium enrichment, which the West fears could be used to make an atomic bomb.
Iran has unveiled its own package, which is a more inclusive effort to solve global problems and suggests the setting up of a consortium in Iran for enriching uranium.
Referring to the package presented by Solana, Mottaki said examination of it would soon enter “the final stage.”
Meanwhile, there has been a surge in recent speculation that Israel might be planning a military strike against Iran’s nuclear sites after it emerged that Israeli fighter planes had carried out practice runs.
But recent reports in Western media have also suggested that Tehran is ready to adopt a softer line and may be prepared to offer concessions.
US President George W. Bush again stressed on Wednesday that military action was possible despite his preference for diplomacy.
“I have always said that all options are on the table but the first option for the United States is to solve this problem diplomatically,” Bush told reporters in the White House Rose Garden.
Top US military chiefs warned meanwhile that opening up a third front against Iran in addition to Iraq and Afghanistan would be “extremely stressful.”
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