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22.07.2010

IRAN AND SANCTIONS

   

Sevak Sarukhanyan

On June 10 the UN Security Council passed a resolution 1929 on imposing new sanctions on Iran. 12 of 15 Security Council member countries voted for the resolution, Turkey and Brazil were against and Lebanon abstained. Despite the information background around the discussion of Iran’s issue in the Security Council, the resolution passed cannot be called stern.

Sanctions

Resolution 1929 in its main parts:

a) restricts the activity of a number of Iranian companies on the international market. Among those companies are the institutions connected with the Iranian nuclear programme and the Corpse of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution,

b) urges the banks registered on the territories of the UN member countries to restrict the activity of a number of the financial institutions and among them is the “First East Export Bank PLC” which is suspected of allotting several million US dollars to buy the components for the Iranian nuclear programme,

c) the UN acquires a right to control the vessels of three Iranian shipping companies and to carry out inspection at any moment when there is a suspicion that they illegally transport armament or engineering of twofold purpose.

In general the sanctions were imposed on 37 Iranian companies.

Here it is worth mentioning that none of the companies or banks is a great actor in the Iranian economy. Their activity is mainly restricted to the maintenance of defence industry and nuclear programme. Thus, imposing sanctions on them may affect Iranian defence industry, but it cannot have serious aftermaths for the macro-economic and social situation in the country.

At the same time, the sanctions which were imposed on the companies which perform specific functions do not affect the international dealings of Iran. Iran will preserve the whole amount of cooperation with other countries even under the sanctions which are called strict. The resolution does not affect the main source of the profits of Iran – the oil industry, either. Under such conditions one cannot say that the sanctions against Iran are serious, though the international and media communities tried to present them like that.

Iran’s response

Taking into consideration the aforementioned, Iran’s response to Resolution 1929 was rather tough in form and calm by its content. In half an hour after passing the resolution Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs M. Mottaki stated that the resolution passed “is the defeat of the West and evidence of Iran’s rightness”. He also mentioned that “after passing a resolution Iran is not going to restrict any of its activities in nuclear energy sector; all the works will continue with new vigour and in a bigger way”.

A day later president of Iran expressed his attitude towards the sanctions almost in the same expressions. He only added that “some states, supporting this resolution, just showed their weakness”. Most probably he meant Russia with which, however, Iran began to re-establish the damaged relations in the second half of June. On June 4 at the inauguration ceremony of mining plant in Bonab the president of Iran came out against the West saying it was only the West to blame in passing a resolution but while imposing the sanctions “they try to avoid their deadly end”.

As for the Iranian response, the information by the Chinese “Sinhua” information agency is remarkable, according to which the Central bank of Iran began selling €45 billion from its reserves and instead of that bought gold and dollars. This information might have stroke another blow to euro but for the response of Iran which stated that “the information is untrue at current moment”.

The formulation at “current moment” demonstrates that Tehran is ready to strike a serious blow to euro but it has not considered it finally yet. And the price for not considering it is, most probably, the refusal of the EU from the support of the American one-sided sanctions. Iran is not interested in the EU support of sanctions against Iran stated by the US president and approved by the Congress right after passing Resolution 1929. In his 10 page letter addressed to the Ministers of the Foreign Affairs of EU member countries the Foreign Minister of Iran M. Mottaki asks them and at the same time urges: “One should not make irrational decisions which deliver a deadly strike to the IRI-EU relations”. Let us mention that in the first half of this year, mainly due to the eager activity in the European market, Iran’s non-oil export grew on 30%. Iran will do everything to prevent the EU from imposing new sanctions.

Breaking up of the common “Iranian policy” of the EU and US is of great importance for Iran today.

On the other hand, the fact that the news about selling euro by Iran was spread by the biggest Chinese information agency give a cause to serious reflections and this, probably, may speak about the joint – Iranian-Chinese – character of that information action.

Regional activation of Iran

Though the nuclear programme was the most discussed subject in Iran over the recent period, for the last month it has seeded to the regional news and regional developments and the main of them has been devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan. The processes and developments in these two countries have turned into important domestic factors in Iran because almost every day political and spiritual figures in Iran make statements about the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is rather remarkable phenomenon because the nuclear programme of Iran caused imposing of relatively serious sanctions on Tehran, the US and EU leaders almost every day make statements on Iranian issue, meanwhile the most actively discussed subjects in the Iranian political processes regard not to the nuclear programme but to Iran and Afghanistan.

From the very first sight the analysis of the Iranian statements regarding the situation in those two countries shows that they are, most probably, a part of strategy directed to turning Iraq and Afghanistan into a “bigger headache” for the US and NATO. Iran initiated the destabilization of situation in Iraq and the manifestation of it is the ongoing parliamentary crisis in that country which is mainly the result of the activity of “pro-Iranian” Shiite groups directed against the creation of the “big coalition”.

Most probably, Tehran came to the conclusion that there is no “way back” in the nuclear programme, which would bring to the failure of the negotiations and new sanctions and maybe to the military strikes. In this context, Iran, destabilizing the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan not only consolidates its positions in the regional processes but also “ties” the hands of the US – its potential military rival.

It is worth mentioning that Iran began working more actively in Central Asia and South Caucasus too. In the recent period Iranian party rather often turns to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict and Kirghiz crisis, makes statements and shows that here Iran has its interests as well and it will pursue them by all means.


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