Iran wants friends not to side with US

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast says Tehran expects its allies to not take Washington’s side by supporting the US-engineered sanctions against the country.

Referring to Russia’s recent decision to withdraw from a military deal with Iran, Mehmanparast said on Monday, “We expect differently from our neighboring and brother countries and believe that playing in the American court will not be beneficial.”

On Wednesday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree prohibiting the delivery of the S-300 missile defense systems as well as armored vehicles, warplanes and warships to Iran in line with the US-engineered UN Security Council sanctions against the country.

Mehmanparast said that Resolution 1929 “is in no way acceptable since it is an inappropriate response to the trilateral initiative of the Tehran declaration.”

“As we have said before, Resolution 1929 has been drawn up unjustly and based on completely political and discriminatory suppositions that are not acceptable for us,” Fars News Agency quoted him as saying.

Iran, Brazil and Turkey issued a joint fuel swap declaration on May 17, based on which Tehran agreed to exchange 1,200 kg of its low-enriched uranium on Turkish soil with fuel for its Tehran research reactor.

“While Iran does not welcome sanctions, we stress that such measures will not dissuade us from the path of achieving our national interests based on the rights granted to us by international treaties,” Mehmanparast added.

Following the imposition of UN sanctions against Iran in June, the US and the European Union slapped unilateral sanctions on the country’s energy and financial sectors.

Tehran has repeatedly rejected Western accusations that it is developing nuclear weapons, insisting that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it has the right to pursue and utilize nuclear technology for civilian purposes.