Iran: New sanctions from West 'in vain'

Iran dismissed on Tuesday new sanctions announced by Western powers, saying they would only serve to unite Iranians and not hurt the economy or force it to halt its nuclear program. The Obama administration announced announced new sanctions on Iran’s energy and financial sectors on Monday in an effort to apply greater pressure to get Tehran to halt its suspected nuclear weapons program. The measures were coordinated with Britain and Canada and build on previous sanctions to target Iran’s oil and petrochemical industries and companies involved in nuclear procurement or enrichment activity. France proposed “unprecedented” tougher measures including freezing the assets of its central bank and suspending purchases of its oil. Mehmanparast says Iran’s trade and economic ties with the United States and Britain are small anyway. The sanctions pushed benchmark Brent crude above $107, reflecting concerns about escalating tensions with the world’s fifth biggest exporter, but Iran’s Foreign Ministy spokesman dismissed the latest measures as empty “propaganda and psychological warfare.” “Such measures are condemned by our people and will have no impact and be in vain,” Ramin Mehmanparast told a news conference. “They will have no impact on Iran’s trade and economic ties with other countries.” Tehran said a UN nuclear agency report, which prompted the latest sanctions due to intelligence suggesting Iran had worked on an atomic bomb design, was baseless and merely the work of its Western enemies.The report and the sanctions would only make Iran more determined to purse the nuclear program that it says is entirely peaceful, Mehmanparast said. “If our people feel that enemies want to deprive them of their rights by threatening, bullying and adopting illegal and irrational methods, they will pursue the path that they have taken more united and more determined than ever,” Mehmanparast said.