Sherman stresses white house opposition to new sanctions on Iran

US Undersecretary of State and top negotiator in the nuclear talks with Iran Wendy Sherman reiterated that the Obama administration is opposed to the imposition of any new sanctions against Iran. “The US administration wants approval of new sanctions against Iran to be stopped until the results of the next round of talks become clear,” Sherman told the Voice of America. She underlined that Iran and the US are at the beginning of a path towards mutual understanding. Earlier this month, Iran and the G5+1 wrapped up two days of talks and agreed to meet again in Geneva, Switzerland, on November 7-8. At the end of the negotiations, EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton hailed the nuclear negotiations as the “most detailed” and most “substantive” ones ever held between the two sides. Washington and its western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry. Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions and the western embargos for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment. Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path. Tehran has repeatedly said that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities.