EU to go unilateral against Iran, following US model

Finland's foreign minister claims consensus in the European Union for new Iran sanctions over its nuclear program vowing to act unilaterally without a UN resolution.

Following the footsteps of the US, Alexander Stubb, whose country is hosting a meeting of EU foreign ministers and Turkey, announces that the European bloc will impose unilateral sanctions on Tehran in case Beijing and Moscow refuse to support a similar move at the UN Security Council.

"I think we'll be able to convince Russia and China and I'm quite hopeful that we'll get something in the Security Council," he said in Lapland in northern Finland, where the event is being held.

"But failing that, we'll just have to do it unilaterally and by unilateral I mean the EU directly on Iran," he added, according to local media reports.

Washington and its European allies have been pushing for a fourth round of sanctions against Iran to restrict its nuclear work.

The Western powers claim Tehran's nuclear program is aimed at developing nuclear weapons, a charge that the inspectors of UN's nuclear watchdog stationed in Iran have been unable to substantiate.

Many observers in US and Europe have highlighted the West's double standards regarding Iran's nuclear issue. They point to West's inaction regarding three countries, namely Israel, India and Pakistan, which not only possess nuclear arms but have refuse to sign any international treaty regulating nuclear activities and controlling proliferation.

Iran, on the other hand, is a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. No country, evidently, has ever been subjected to more voluntary IAEA inspections than Iran. The Islamic Republic has always maintained the civilian nature of its nuclear program and has repeatedly called for the elimination of all nuclear arms globally, a call ignored by nuclear powers and the West.

It is incredible, the observers argue, how so much pressure is being fiercely mobilized by the West against a country that has voluntarily accepted international inspections but refuses to succumb to unreasonable demands mostly pushed by countries that possess and continue to develop atomic arms.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=120782§ionid=351020104