Tehran - Iran will not be intimidated by either threats or
sanctions by the United States, which will not change Tehran's course
in the nuclear dispute, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi
said Monday.
'Sanctions and threats will not intimidate us and especially not
affect our national will in following our rights, especially our
nuclear rights,' the spokesman said.
Ghashghavi was referring to US plans to reportedly put sanctions
on fuel exports to Iran.
'Sanctions and threats are history and have lost their
efficiency,' the spokesman said, adding with a reference to Israel,
'These are just efforts by the Zionist lobby [in the US] to deviate
the course of the new US administration.'
The Iranian oil ministry said the country would be able to cope
with the US plan and cover the possible shortages within 48 hours.
Iran welcomed the decision by the US administration to resume
talks, but President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for changes promised
by his US counterpart, Barack Obama, to be implemented.
Also Ahmadinejad's main challenger in the June 12 presidential
elections, Mir-Hossein Mpoussavi, said in an interview with the
German magazine Der Spiegel that Obama's language was 'refreshingly
different' from his predecessor George W Bush and, if the United
States was serious, 'then why shouldn't we negotiate?'
Iran and the United States have had no formal diplomatic ties for
three decades.
The prospects of a policy change are darkened by the Iranian
persistence not to follow demands by the US and the United Nations
Security Council to suspend its nuclear-enrichment programme.
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