Moscow Supports Sanctions Directed at Strengthening the NPT, Only.

 

February 24, 2010 (Hamsayeh.Net) - Today a senior Russian official said his country is totally against economic sanctions against Iran aimed at crippling the nation.

 

Oleg Rozhkov, the deputy of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s security affairs and disarmament department, told reporters that Moscow is willing to consider only some sanctions directed at strengthening none-proliferation regime. ‘Call them what you want -- crippling or paralyzing -- we are not got going to work on sanctions or measures which could lead to the political or economic or financial isolation of this country,’ Reuters reported Rozhkov as saying.

 

He added that sanctions against Iran must only be directed at the questions posed by the country’s nuclear program and nothing else. ‘What relation to non-proliferation is there in forbidding banking activities with Iran? This is a financial blockade. And oil and gas. These sanctions are aimed only at paralyzing the country and paralyzing the regime,’ the Russian official said.

 

United States and its Western allies desperately seek Russian and Chinese cooperation to place additional sanctions on Iran. Their support would further legitimize Western antagonism against Iran in whatever plans they might eventually have for the future. But Moscow and Beijing expressed their concerns about overdoing these Western pressure tactics to halt the Iranian nuclear program.