News & Comment

US, EU and UN Imposed Sanctions on Iran Have Had no Other Purpose than to Afflict its People at the Expense of Western Interests

News

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry appeared at a State Department briefing by video conference. Michael Gordon of The New York Times asked him whether under a final deal, Iran would need to disclose all of the past and present military aspects of its nuclear program before sanctions against the country, would be lifted. It appears that the Obama administration isn’t going to insist on full Iranian disclosure of the extent of its nuclear program as part of a comprehensive nuclear deal.

“The possible military dimensions, frankly, gets distorted a little bit in some of the discussion, in that we’re not fixated on Iran specifically accounting for what they did at one point in time or another,” he told reporters. “We know what they did. We have no doubt. We have absolute knowledge with respect to the certain military activities they were engaged in. What we’re concerned about is going forward. It’s critical to us to know that going forward, those activities have been stopped, and that we can account for that in a legitimate way.”

That’s a shift from just two months ago, right after the parties reached a preliminary deal, when Kerry told PBS that Iran would need to divulge its past nuclear activities as part of any final deal. “They have to do it. It will be done. If there’s going to be a deal; it will be done,” he said.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/john-kerry-on-irans-nuclear-disclosure-2015-6

Comment

In Lausanne, Switzerland from March 26 to April 2 Foreign Ministers from America and P5+1 Nations, China, France, Germany, United Kingdom and Russia together with the European Union High Representative and the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran gathered to find diplomatic solutions towards reaching a comprehensive agreement that aimed to ensure the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program and the comprehensive lifting of all sanctions. Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful and there was no evidence that they were producing nuclear weapons.

A 2011 IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program highlighted evidence of possible military dimensions including hiding certain elements of the program, obtaining documentation on the development of nuclear weapons, procuring dual use equipment, and testing weapon system components. Secrecy and cover-ups have suggested that there may be more to the nuclear program than meets the eye.

As a consequence sanctions by the U.S., the European Union and the United Nations all have enacted sanctions against Iranian companies and individuals over Iran’s disputed nuclear program. They have varied in severity and in which sectors they target, from banking and insurance to shipping and energy.

The underlying goal of the sanctions has been to harm the people of Iran enough to pressure their leaders into acquiescing to the West's demands. The new change in demands the US has revealed concerning the absence of insistence on the full Iranian disclosure of the extent of its nuclear program as part of a comprehensive nuclear deal reveals this point. The impact of these sanctions furthermore have caused according to a Gallup poll in 2013 thirty-one percent of Iranians to rate their lives poorly enough to be considered "suffering" in 2012 -- one of the highest rates in the greater Middle East North Africa region.

The continuing impact that the Ummah experiences as a result of the loss of the shield, the Khilafah "Caliphate" is observable in Iran by oppressive sanctions imposed by the US, EU and UN sanctions. Sanctions that furthermore have been designed to afflict the people of Iran at the expense of Western interests.

«إِنَّمَا الإِمَامُ جُنَّةٌ يُقَاتَلُ مِنْ وَرَائِهِ وَيُتَّقَى بِهِ فَإِنْ أَمَرَ بِتَقْوَى اللَّهِ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ وَعَدَلَ كَانَ لَهُ بِذَلِكَ أَجْرٌ وَإِنْ يَأْمُرْ بِغَيْرِهِ كَانَ عَلَيْهِ مِنْهُ»

“Only the Imam is a shield, behind whom you fight and you protect yourself with, so if he orders by taqwa and is just then he has reward for that, and if he orders by other than that then it is against himself”

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Tsurroya Amal Yasna