Iran warns against US potential sanctions

Iran on Monday warned against potential US sanctions against the country, and called on the European Union and other countries to adopt an independent approach toward the Islamic Republic.Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said Monday that if the United States intends to launch a new round of sanctions against Iran, it will not gain much from them. Washington officials said that the US was working with its partners to impose comprehensive sanctions on Iran, including sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran over Tehran's alleged involvement in a plot to assassinate the Saudi envoy to the United State. Iran fiercely denied such charges but the high-profile accusations have brought fresh tensions to relations between the two arch-foes. Larijani said if the United States generates trouble for Iran, it will certainly prove costly for Washington. Referring to the US allegations, he said it is very clear that American officials have always pursued antagonistic policies towards Iran. Larijani said US President Barack Obama should not assume that he is free to do whatever he wants against the Islamic Republic. He urged regional countries to be cautious about the US plots which are aimed at sowing discord among them, saying that Washington's policies are merely detrimental to the region. He said that the US has been irked by the recent popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa and therefore seeks to drive friction among regional countries through a variety of schemes. On Monday, Iran's Central Bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani said that United Nations cannot impose sanctions on Iran's Central Bank. "Although the Central Bank has launched a number of programs to counter sanctions, the Untied Nations and official organizations cannot sanction the Central Bank," Bahmani told reporters today. "The Central Bank is an independent institution and imposing sanctions on this bank is completely illegal and against norms and standards," he added. He said imposing sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran only due to the lies told to the world by the US would be a "futile crime". "Yet, we believe that the UN would not impose sanctions on the Central Bank," Bahmani reiterated. "These organizations are wise; we cannot say that they lack wisdom. If they are even half-wise, they would not impose sanctions against the CBI," he stressed. After the US accused Iran of a plot to assassinate a Saudi envoy to Washington, the White House asked its European allies to intensify sanctions against Iran. Tehran has repeatedly rejected the accusation as "baseless" and "a fabricated scenario".On October 11, the US alleged that Iran had attempted to hire a Mexican drug gang to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel Al-Jubeir. Two men were charged in New York federal court two weeks ago in the alleged plot. Manssor Arbabsiar is a 56-year-old naturalized US citizen. In May 2011, the US criminal complaint says, he approached someone he believed to be a member of the vicious Mexican drug cartel, Los Zetas, for help with an attack on the Saudi Ambassador to Washington Adel al-Jubeir. The man he approached turned out to be an informant for US drug agents, it says. The US administration charges that Arbabsiar had been told by his cousin Abdul Reza Shahlai to recruit a drug trafficker for a hitman job. On Thursday, Iran's Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi rebutted the US claims point by point, and stressed that Iran doesn't need to resort to such terror plots and it would not benefit from killing a Saudi diplomat. He mocked the US claims, saying the accusation reeked of "stupidity" and detailed incredibly unprofessional tradecraft. Moslehi said the US allegations - involving an Iranian-American used car salesman trying to contract Mexican gangsters to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington - were "too cheap to believe." "The initial reaction to this claim by our intelligence officers was genuine surprise at the abundance of stupidity evident in this scenario," he said. Moslehi said even the weakest intelligence agencies in the world wouldn't hire a man with Arbabsiar's background let alone assign him to an operation on US soil. The intelligence minister said Arbabsiar, who acquired US citizenship eight months ago, likely agreed to cooperate with American intelligence agencies in return for his residency permit.