TEHRAN, 14 March 2006 — Iran said yesterday its dollar transactions had been restricted by seven or eight international financial institutions, and warned Tehran could switch its holdings into other currencies. The Iranian statement came amid mounting Western pressure on Tehran to give up its quest for uranium enrichment that could lead to the country acquiring the atomic bomb. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran would not back out in its standoff with the West and Russia announced new talks to break the deadlock.
Iran caused a flap on international markets earlier this year after the central bank governor was quoted as saying Tehran was repatriating dollars held in foreign accounts. The remarks were swiftly retracted.
“There have been symbolic acts of late and America has restricted Iran’s dollar-based transactions with the outside world through seven or eight financial institutions,” Finance Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari told a news conference.
He added that the institutions were either US-owned or “influenced by the Zionists.”
“But this will not cause any trouble in the end because when dollar-based transactions get restricted, we can use other currencies and that would be against US interests,” he added.
It was not immediately clear what institutions Danesh-Jafari was referring to.
Iran has been reported to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions after failing to convince the world that its nuclear scientists are working exclusively on power stations and not branching out into weapons. Washington threatens sanctions against countries doing business with Iran, which it accuses of seeking nuclear arms, funding anti-Israeli militias and fomenting attacks on US troops in Iraq. Tehran denies the charges.
Yesterday, Iran vowed to press on with its nuclear activities and played down the threat of sanctions. President Ahmadinejad said: “We know well that a country’s backing down one iota on its undeniable rights is the same as losing everything.”
“We will not bend to a few countries’ threats as their demands for giving up our nation’s rights are unfair and cruel,” state television quoted him as saying.
Iran said it was still interested in a Russian compromise solution to the dispute, but Russia’s foreign minister said the Iranians were fouling up Moscow’s diplomatic efforts.
“We are extremely disappointed with the way Iran is behaving in the course of these talks,” Russia’s RIA news agency quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying.
“Iran is absolutely no help to those who want to find peaceful ways to solve this problem.” Lavrov said bilateral Iran-Russia talks would take place in the near future at Tehran’s request, but gave no details.
A senior Iranian official earlier insisted Tehran wanted a diplomatic way out of the standoff and was still considering the Russian proposal, apparently retracting remarks by the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman a day earlier.
The five veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council are deadlocked over the best way to pressure Iran into clearing up questions about its nuclear program.
