Tracking Number: 389454
Title: "US Broadens World's Toughest Sanctions Against Iran." Remarks by Secretary of State Warren Christopher regarding the new ban on all US trade and investment with Iran.
(950501)
Translated Title: Les E-U renforcent encore leurs sanctions contre l'Iran. (950501)
Date: 19950501
Text:
U.S. BROADENS WORLD'S TOUGHEST SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAN
(Text: Christopher statement, Q&A at news briefing) (2540)
Washington -- President Clinton's Executive Order banning all U.S. trade and
investment with Iran, to be issued later this week, "dramatically expands"
existing American sanctions against Iran, which are already the toughest in
the world, according to Secretary of State Christopher.
"Iran is an outlaw state. Its repugnant behavior has not changed," he told a May 1 news briefing at the State Department. The secretary cited three main concerns:
-- Iran is the foremost state sponsor of terrorism in the world. -- Through its support of particular terrorist enterprises, Iran seeks to undermine the Middle East peace process.
-- Iran is a major proliferation threat and is pursuing a determined course to acquire nuclear weapons.
Christopher said Iran spends several hundred million dollars a year to provide radical groups with weapons, equipment, training and financial support. "It has supported violence across the Middle East: in Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Algeria, and now in Gaza. Its terrorist reach is also global, extending to Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe as well," he said.
"Since the mid-1980s, Iran has had an organized structure dedicated to acquiring and developing nuclear weapons," he said. "A regime with this kind of a record simply cannot be permitted to get its hands on nuclear weapons," he warned. Iran approached a plant in Kazakhstan in 1992 in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain substantial quantities of enriched uranium, he said.
"If Iran gets substantial foreign help, it will be able to build nuclear weapons sooner rather than later," Christopher warned. "That is why we will continue to oppose any Russian or Chinese cooperation with Iran on nuclear matters." The secretary emphasized that "one of the points that really needs to be made is that this is in their interests. They are both much closer to Iran than we are."
Christopher said Clinton's decision to sever already heavily restricted U.S. economic ties with Iran "totally eliminates" the excuse other countries have used for broad-based commercial relationships with Iran.
"It puts the United States in the strongest possible position to urge others to take similar steps," he said, adding that the United States will call on its partners in the G-7 group of major industrialized nations to undertake a comprehensive review of their economic ties with Iran and end concessionary credits to Iran.
Following is the transcript of Christopher's statement and the question-and-answer session that followed:
(begin transcript) CHRISTOPHER: Last night, as you know, the president announced an important decision regarding U.S. policy toward Iran. His Executive Order will ban all U.S. trade and investment with Iran, including the purchase of Iranian oil by American companies.
This action dramatically expands existing U.S. sanctions against Iran, which are already the toughest in the world.
The president's decision reinforces our overall strategy toward the Middle East. From the outset advancing the Arab-Israeli peace process and maintaining security in the Gulf have been among the highest foreign policy priorities of our administration.
As many of you recall, my first trip to the Middle East included a stop in the Gulf. At that time and on many occasions since then almost every Middle Eastern leader, Arab and Israeli alike, have told me that Iran represents one of the greatest, if not the greatest, threats to peace and stability in the region.
With that in mind, our policy toward Iran has been consistent from the start; that is, to use our diplomatic and economic measures and our military deterrent to contain Iran and to pressure it to cease its unacceptable actions.
We have had some successes working with our G-7 partners and other nations, but it is clear now that more must be done. Iran is an outlaw state. Its repugnant behavior has not changed. Let me be clear about what our main concerns are.
First, Iran is the foremost state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Second, through its support of particular terrorist enterprises, Iran seeks to undermine the Middle East peace process.
And third, Iran is a major proliferation threat and is pursuing a determined course to acquire nuclear weapons.
Iran's backing for international terrorism is pervasive. It has supported violence across the Middle East: in Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Algeria, and now in Gaza. Its terrorist reach is also global, extending to Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe as well.
We estimate that Iran, a country that is now in the throes of a severe economic crisis, nevertheless spends several hundred million dollars a year to provide radical groups with weapons, equipment, training and financial support.
Iran is the primary patron of terrorists trying to derail the Arab/Israeli peace process. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizballah, Ahmed Jabril's Popular Front, each of those organizations receives funds, training and political support from Iran, support which they have used to leave a trail a carnage from Beit Lid to Buenos Aires.
A regime with this kind of a record simply cannot be permitted to get its bands on nuclear weapons. Based upon a wide variety of data, we know that since the mid-1980s, Iran has had an organized structure dedicated to acquiring and developing nuclear weapons.
We know that Iran is seeking a capability to produce both plutonium and highly enriched uranium, the critical materials for a nuclear bomb. For years, Iran has been trying to purchase heavy water research reactors that are best suited to producing weapons-grade plutonium, not electricity.
We know that Iran is devoting resources to various uranium-enrichment technologies focusing on the gas centrifuge.
Iran has been frustrated so far in its efforts to produce weapon-grade material at home. Therefore, it has aggressively sought to buy them abroad. Its agents have scoured the former Soviet Union in search of nuclear materials, technologies and scientists. In 1992, for example, Iran unsuccessfully approached a plant in Kazakhstan for substantial quantities of enriched uranium.
In terms of its organization, programs, procurement and covert activities, Iran is pursuing the classic route to nuclear weapons which has been followed by almost all states that have recently sought a nuclear capability.
If the international community does not take strong action to counter its efforts, Iran will achieve its goal. When that might happen, no one can predict with certainty; but what we do know is that if Iran gets substantial foreign help, it will be able to build nuclear weapons sooner rather than later.
That is why we will continue to oppose any Russian or Chinese cooperation with Iran on nuclear matters. We are convinced that the expertise and technology gained, even from cooperation that appears to be strictly civilian in nature, that cooperation will be used to advance Iran's nuclear program. For that reason, all the leading industrialized democracies of the world have rejected nuclear trade with Iran because they recognize that it is simply too dangerous to do so.
With its proven record of terrorism and aggressive ambitions, Iran cannot be given the benefit of the doubt. Increased international pressure must be applied to Iran to bring about a change in its policies.
That is exactly the goal of the president's Executive Order. It sends an unmistakable message to friend and foe alike: we view Iran's action as a major threat to U.S. interests and international security, and we're determined to stop them.
In recent months, other countries have pointed to the on-going, although heavily restricted, economic ties between the United States and Iran. They've pointed to that to justify their broad-based commercial relationships. Now the president's decision totally eliminates that excuse for their going ahead.
The president's decision underscores America's readiness to lead by example. It puts the United States in the strongest possible position to urge others to take similar steps. In addition to opposing Russian and Chinese nuclear cooperation with Iran, we'll be calling on our G-7 partners to undertake a comprehensive review of their economic ties to Iran.
Certainly, they should end all of their concessionary credits which allow Iran to divert scarce resources to military programs and to sponsoring terrorism. We're also asking our G-7 partners to show maximum restraint across the board just as the United States has done.
The president has taken a bold step. His action deserves the support of our friends and allies who share our interest in international peace and security. I'll be redoubling my own efforts through various diplomatic steps and means to ensure that such support is forthcoming.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, have you had any indication from Moscow that this step is causing them to reconsider their position on the reactor sale?
ANSWER: Of course, the president just announced the step last night. I intend to be raising the matter in Moscow, as certainly the president will. We're very serious about this issue.
I feel that the president's step last night puts us in the strongest possible position to advocate both with the Russians and Chinese and with others that they do nothing to aid Iran in the pursuit of this nuclear weapons capability.
Q: But did you not give the Russians any advance notice of this? A: The Russians certainly were not surprised by what we did last night. We've been talking with them for some time about the need to take firmer action against Iran. As far as the particular timing of matters, I'm not going to get into that. I'm certain that they're not surprised by our having turned up the rheostat in our action against Iran, taking action to end all trade between the United States and Iran.
Q: Mr. Secretary, does the Clinton administration have firm evidence that Iranian-backed extremists were responsible for the Buenos Aires bombing and that Iran was indeed trying to purchase or, in some fashion, acquire the radioactive material in Kazakhstan?
A: I stand on the statement as I read it. It was carefully prepared; it has my full endorsement. We have the evidence that justifies the statement that I made.
Q: Mr. Secretary, you've been calling Iran an "international outlaw" for more than a year. And, as you said today. Iran has had the infrastructure to build a nuclear weapons program for the last decade. So could you describe to us what motivated the president to make this decision last Friday? What was behind the timing? And is it fair to say that the decision is motivated by the fact that tomorrow the Republicans were going to begin hearings on their own sanctions legislation?
A: Our policy toward Iran has been evolving even since the beginning of this administration. We early on identified Iran and Iraq as international outlaws, commenced the dual-containment program. We have very strong sanctions against Iraq at the present time, strong sanctions against Libya.
The policy change that the president made last -- the decision he made last Friday and announced last night have been under consideration for some time. A number of factors go into any decision of that kind.
But I'd have to say that in my own situation one of the arguments that was most persuasive to me was that other nations were using our trade with Iran as an excuse for making concessionary credits or taking other actions to strengthen Iran.
The president felt -- certainly, I strongly felt -- that we did not want to give anybody a justification or an excuse or really even an argument against the strong position that we are taking. Now I think we're in a much better position than we were before the president's decision to advocate in the strongest terms that other nations take the same kind of action that we have taken.
I don't say it was an easy decision. As the president said last night, he did not take it lightly. But in the long run, it will be the right decision for U.S. interests.
Q: Mr. Secretary, how will America's relations with its top allies and friends be affected if they do not go along with this embargo, if they in effect take advantage of it and make more money from the situation?
A: We think that this will give us an opportunity to talk with them in the strongest terms, and I hope that they will take action that is parallel to ours.
As I said in my statement, I hope at least that they will not go forward with any concessionary credits, and there has been encouraging news recently from Japan on that front. I hope that they'll take the steps that we've taken, but particularly that they'll avoid any concessionary credits that Iran can simply use to fuel the terrorism that they're projecting around the world.
Q: What are the consequences for China and Russia if they persist in their nuclear-related trade with Iran? What will the administration do?
A: At the present time we're going to be using our strongest arguments to persuade them not to do that. One of the points that really needs to be made is that this is in their interests. They are both much closer to Iran than we are.
I can't imagine they'd like to have a nuclear-capable Iran on or very near their borders, so I'm going to be talking to them in terms of their own self-interest. But I think we're strengthened by the sacrifice that the United States is prepared to make in order to ensure that it is in the strongest possible position to talk with them and talk with the others.
Q: In the past, the administration has said two things basically: that, one, it is almost impossible to trace the international oil trade through the Amsterdam market; and, second, that sanctions which are empty can be worse than no sanctions at all because they destroy the credibility.
What has changed to alter those two statements made in the past by your administration?
A: Let me put it in a little broader context. The president has made economic security and economic growth one of the hallmarks of his administration; and since the president has been in office, about 6.5 million new jobs have been created. This is going to continue to be a central aspect of the president's foreign and domestic policy -- that is, economic growth, economic security. I think the decision here represents the fact that there are some instances in which our national security interests are so strong, our other interests are so strong, that they outweigh the interest in promoting in this one instance economic growth.
I do not think in the long term the United States will be disadvantaged by this. On the contrary, I think it strengthens our position. The reason the president took this decision was because it enables him to project America leadership.
This is all about American leadership. Will America take the sacrifice, undertake the steps, in order to show the way to other countries. I hope that other countries will respond to that leadership and do something which is in their self-interest as well as the international interest in peace and stability. Thanks very much.
(end transcript) NNNN
File Identification: 05/01/95, TXT102; 05/01/95, AXF102; 05/01/95, EPF109; 05/01/95, EUR103; 05/01/95, NEA103; 05/01/95, NAA103; 05/02/95, AFI204; 05/03/95, ERF301
Product Name: Wireless File
Product
Code: WF
Languages: Arabic; Arabic; French; Russian
Keywords: CHRISTOPHER, WARREN/Speaker; IRAN-US RELATIONS/Policy; SANCTIONS; IRAN/Defense & Military; NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Document
Type: TXT
Thematic Codes: 1NE
Target Areas: AF; EA; EU; NE
PDQ Text Link: 389454; 389783
USIA Notes: *95050102.TXT
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