TEHRAN/DUSHANBE: A defiant Iran on Thursday described new UN sanctions as a “used handkerchief that should be thrown into the waste bin” and said it would continue uranium enrichment that world powers suspect may be aimed at developing nuclear weapons.
In Vienna, Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali Asghar Soltanieh dismissed Wednesday’s UN vote as another dark chapter of mistakes and miscalculations and said he hoped the major powers would reconsider their “mistakes”. A senior parliamentarian suggested Iran might reconsider the level of its co-operation with the IAEA, which is responsible for monitoring nuclear activity.
A US-drafted sanctions resolution was adopted by 12 votes to two in the UN Security Council on Wednesday, with Lebanon abstaining and Brazil and Turkey voting against.
Although swiftly hailed by the US, Britain and France who co-sponsored the resolution, the sanctions drew an immediate, scornful reaction from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
