From: William Gladys <william.gladys@tiscali.co.uk>
Date: Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 11:14 PM
Subject: Fw: 'US pressured UK to freeze Iran assets'
To: world_Politics@googlegroups.com
http://presstv.com/detail/163987.html
'US pressured UK to freeze Iran assets'
Sun Feb 6, 2011 6:4PM
According to documents released by Wikileaks, the United States has pressured the UK into imposing sanctions against Iranian banks operating in this country.
According to a cable from November 2007 obtained from the US Embassy in London, then UK Premier Gordon Brown and Foreign Minister David Miliband were "pressing aggressively for tough new EU measures, strengthening its public rhetoric, and using financial oversight to quietly scrutinize Iranian banks operating in the UK," the Jerusalem Post reported on Thursday.
Wikileaks has released about 2,700 cables so far, but officials say the State Department is mainly concerned with the 99 percent of the cables obtained by Wikileaks -- about 251,187 cables -- which have not been published yet.
The document says the US tried to convince Britain to pass legislation which would give them legal authority to freeze Iran's assets under the pretext of Tehran's alleged proliferation activities.
The cable describes the UK as unwilling to take harsher measures against Iranian banks, claiming "it cannot go public with its efforts against the banks without risking political backlash for singling out one country's commercial assets over another's."
Based on this cable because of the UK's image in Iran as "the original Great Satan," Britain was opposed to unilateral sanctions against Iran and supported "unified international measures."
The US and its allies accuse Iran of developing a military nuclear program, and used this pretext to pressure the UN Security Council to impose a fourth round of sanctions against Iran's financial and military sectors in June.
Iranian officials have repeatedly refuted the allegations, arguing that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Tehran has a right to use peaceful nuclear technology.
As a goodwill gesture aimed at displaying the "transparency" of its nuclear program in the spirit of international cooperation, Iran invited diplomats representing political and geographical groups in the IAEA to tour the country's nuclear facility.
Representatives from the IAEA, the Non-aligned Movement (NAM), Group of 77 and the Arab League arrived in Tehran on Saturday for a two-day tour of the country's nuclear sites.
NAM and Group of 77 representatives, who visited Iran's nuclear facilities, later released a report hailing the country's transparency.
MYA/HGH/MMN
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