By Guy Dinmore and Gareth Smyth
22 April 2006
FINANCIAL TIMES
Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, Iran’s fundamentalist president, yesterday said rising crude oil prices were “very good”, reflecting his belief that events are moving in Iran’s favour as Russia appeared to rule out sanctions against Tehran without proof its nuclear programme was designed to produce weapons.
Oil prices yesterday rose above Dollars 75 a barrel on concern that shipments from Iran and Nigeria will be disrupted.
The president’s remarks will be read in some quarters as a warning, to those who advocate action — either economic or military — against Tehran over its nuclear ambitions, that Iran’s position as the fourth largest global oil producer makes it a difficult target.
On Thursday Mr Ahmadi-Nejad announced Tehran was studying a dual pricing scheme to cushion poor countries against high oil prices while countries with “hundreds of billions of dollars should pay the real price of oil”.
Since becoming president last year, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad has faced western condemnation for fiery verbal attacks on Israel but his support for the Palestinians and egalitarian slogans have courted popularity among many in the Arab and Islamic worlds. His proposal that “poor consumers” should get lower oil prices plays into that same populism.
In Washington, Nicholas Burns, a senior State Department official who failed in talks in Moscow this week to get Russia and China to commit to sanctions, said it was time for countries to use their leverage against Iran.
He singled out Russia, calling on it to stop all arms sales to Iran, including a recent deal to provide anti-aircraft missiles.
In a clear reference to China he said states with “billion dollar commercial relations” should rethink those ties.
Ramping up the pressure on Moscow, Mr Burns said the Iran nuclear issue would top the agenda of Group of Eight foreign ministers meeting ahead of the scheduled summit in St Petersburg in July.
If the UN Security Council failed to take action against Iran within “a reasonable time” then “groups of countries” would get together to impose sanctions, Mr Burns said, indicating that the US was pulling together another ad hoc “coalition of the willing”.
Robert Joseph, a senior US official who toured Gulf Arab states last week to co-ordinate possible steps against Iran, including missile defence, said Iran was “very close to that point of no return” where it had mastered technology to enrich uranium.
At home, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s domestic critics charge him with recklessness over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Its resumption in January led the Security Council to impose a 30-day deadline, expiring on April 28, to suspend its atomic activities.
However, a Russian spokesman yesterday reiterated Moscow’s continuing opposition to United Nations sanctions.
“One can speak of sanctions only after the appearance of concrete facts proving Iran is not engaged exclusively in peaceful nuclear activities,” Mikhail Kamynin, the foreign ministry spokesman, was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass news agency. RIA-Novosti news agency quoted Nikolai Spassky, deputy head of the Kremlin Security Council, as saying Russia was not discussing sanctions.
Russia does continue to argue, however, that Iran should improve co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose head, Mohamed ElBaradei, will soon present his latest report on unanswered questions over Iran’s nuclear programme.
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