Obama, Clinton and Geithner Welcome New EU Sanctions on Iran

23 January 2012

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Timothy Geithner expressed hope the new sanctions will prompt Iranian officials to address worldwide concerns about their country's nuclear program.

President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner welcomed new European Union sanctions on Iran, measures agreed to by the organization’s Foreign Affairs Council in an effort to increase the pressure on Tehran to address concerns surrounding its nuclear activities.

“I applaud today’s action by our partners in the European Union to impose additional sanctions on Iran in response to the regime’s continuing failure to fulfill its international obligations regarding its nuclear program,” Obama said in a January 23 statement.

Clinton and Geithner also welcomed the decision by the European Union “to ban imports of Iranian crude oil and petroleum products, freeze the assets of the Iranian central bank, and take additional action against Iran’s energy, financial and transport sectors.”

The secretaries said in a joint statement January 23 that the new measures mark “another strong step in the international effort to dramatically increase the pressure on Iran” to address the global community’s “serious and well-founded concerns” that the country’s civilian nuclear program is being used as a cover for the deployment of nuclear weapons.

Clinton and Geithner said the European Union’s action is consistent with steps the United States previously has taken and with new U.S. sanctions on Iran that President Obama signed into law December 31. Those sanctions, they said, strengthened the impact of existing measures by targeting transactions with Iran’s central bank and providing strong incentives to reduce Iran’s ability to earn revenue from its oil exports.

The secretaries said renewed pressure from the European Union “will sharpen the choice for Iran’s leaders and increase their cost of defiance of basic international obligations.”

Clinton and Geithner said the United States and its international partners remain committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“That is why we have pursued a dual-track policy that puts pressure on Iran to engage seriously in discussions with the international community on its nuclear program,” they said. But to date, Iran has failed to take advantage of the offer of engagement and has continued to violate the standards set by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Concerns about the program “have only been heightened by Iran’s inability to explain how its nuclear program is, as it claims, exclusively peaceful in nature or to provide any credible response to the IAEA’s November 2011 report that detailed the potential military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program,” Clinton and Geithner said.

Representatives from the IAEA are scheduled to visit Iran later in January to evaluate the country’s nuclear program. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said January 23 that the agency “has been in and out of Iran for years and has yet to be fully satisfied with regard to Iran’s program.”

She emphasized that the IAEA will be going “in a constructive spirit” and “asking Iran to display the same attitude.” The agency will be seeking answers to a significant number of questions regarding Iran’s program as well as access to the country’s nuclear facilities.