Cheney: Options open against Iran
US vice-president talks tough against Tehran and does not rule out military action.
Iran insists that its enrichment activities, which could make fuel for power plants or material for warheads, are for peaceful purposes.
‘Persuasion’
| Your Views |
|
“It is stubbornness and pride on Iran’s part that has led to this impasse, and it can only lead to disaster for Iran” Diom1982, Cork, Ireland |
“We’ve worked with the European Community and through the United Nations to put in place a set of policies to persuade the Iranians to give up their aspirations,” said Cheney. “That’s still our preference.”
“The next step now is being debated, between our government and the others involved,” he added.
Cheney also told reporters that he was concerned about Iran’s “fairly aggressive” role in the Middle East.
Nicholas Burns, the US undersecretary of state, will meet senior European diplomats in London on Saturday to decide “the future course of action we want to pursue with respect to the United Nations sanctions and so forth,” he said.
Officials from the five permanent Security Council nations and Germany will then meet on Monday to start work on a new resolution to try to pressure Iran to suspend enrichment.
Defiance
On Friday, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, said Tehran should stand up to the world and continue to work on its nuclear programme.
“If we show weakness in front of the enemy, the expectations will increase. But if we stand against them, because of this resistance they will retreat,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech in northern Iran, the country’s ISNA news agency reported.
At the United Nations, Mehdi Danesh Yazdi, Iran’s deputy ambassador, accused the United States, Britain and Israel of levelling “baseless allegations” about its nuclear ambitions and insisted that Tehran had always considered weapons of mass destruction “inhumane, immoral and illegal”.
He told the Security Council that his country had an “inalienable right” to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and would not “give in to the pressures emanating from groundless and unsubstantiated allegations and ulterior political motives”.