Presidential election won’t change Iran’s nuclear policy

US Secretary of State John Kerry says Iran’s upcoming presidential election will not change the Islamic Republic’s nuclear policy.

In a Friday press conference with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle in Washington, Kerry alluded to Iran’s nuclear energy program, saying, “I do not have high expectations that the election is going to change the fundamental calculus of Iran.”

Iranians will go to the polls in the nation’s 11th presidential election on June 14.

He also repeated Washington’s claims that the US seeks a “peaceful resolution” to the issues regarding Iran’s nuclear energy program, but simultaneously made a thinly-veiled threat against the Islamic Republic.

“We will continue to pursue… every effort to have a peaceful resolution, but Iran needs to understand that the clock is ticking,” Kerry said.

The comments come amid Washington’s mounting pressure against the Islamic Republic.

On Friday, the US Treasury Department imposed more unilateral sanctions on the Islamic Republic by blacklisting eight petrochemical companies in Iran.

At the beginning of 2012, the US and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.

The illegal US-engineered sanctions were imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Iran rejects the allegation, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran’s civilian nuclear program has been diverted to non-civilian purposes.