Iran sanctions put pressure on West

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki says Western powers will be the one to feel the pressure of the newly-imposed sanctions against Tehran.

On Wednesday, the 15-member UN Security Council (UNSC) put to vote a US-crafted resolution for fresh sanctions on Iran over its uranium enrichment activities.

The session ended with Brazil and Turkey voting against the resolution and Lebanon abstaining from the vote.

Hours after the UNSC resolution was made public, Mottaki told reporters accompanying him on his trip to Ireland that those who voted in favor of new sanctions on Iran would face the consequences of their decision.

“This shows that Iran’s logic of diplomacy has risen to the challenge of the West,” he noted. “Taking such measures is a mistake and it will only mount pressure on the West.”

“The Tehran nuclear conference showed more clearly that Iran will always have the upper hand when it comes to international diplomacy,” he said, referring to the two-day ‘Nuclear Energy for All, Nuclear Weapons for None’ conference which was held in April with the aim of promoting nuclear disarmament in the world.

Western powers accuse Iran of having the intention to develop nuclear weapons in the future.

As a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran insists that it neither believes in nuclear weapons, nor, as a matter of religious principles, does it intend to access weapons of mass-destruction.