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US diplomats to pressure China on Iran sanctions

29 July 2010 22:47 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Top US officials announced Thursday they were heading to China in late August to press Beijing to â€œstep upâ€ and fully implement sanctions against Iran over its suspect nuclear program, APA reports quoting The Daily Star.
â€œChina is of concern to us in this regard,â€ Robert Einhorn, the US State Departmentâ€™s special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Einhorn said he and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes Daniel Glaser would visit China at the â€œend of Augustâ€ as part of a push to â€œraise this at the highest levels.â€
Glaser later said he and Einhorn were headed â€œto Japan and South Korea next week, and China later in the month,â€ as part of a push to get US partners in Asia, the Middle East, and South America to tighten sanctions on Iran.
And a top US Treasury official in charge of sanctions, Stuart Levey, will head to the United Arab Emirates in the next few weeks, said Glaser.
Einhorn said he would press Chinese officials not to â€œbackfillâ€ â€“ step up trade or investment in Iran that would replace firms from â€œresponsible countriesâ€ that leave the Iranian market in the face of broad international sanctions.
â€œItâ€™s important that China step up and recognizeâ€ that it has â€œresponsibilitiesâ€ as a permanent UN Security Council member to implement the councilâ€™s sanctions on Tehran, said Einhorn.
â€œThe Chinese will argue that they have important security needsâ€ related to acquiring energy for their booming economy, the diplomat said. â€œIn our view they are overachieving in terms of their energy security needs.â€
â€œWe think they have to rebalance their priorities,â€ said Einhorn, who underlined that China â€œis going to be the focus of very high level attention over the next weeks and monthsâ€ on the issue of Iran.
A top international affairs and trade official at the US Government Accountability Office, the US Congressâ€™s investigative arm, said China was â€œaggressiveâ€ in investing in Iranâ€™s energy sector despite the sanctions.
The official, Joseph Christoff, told the same hearing that the United States had to â€œturn [its] attentionâ€ to China because international and unilateral sanctions were â€œnot changing their behavior.â€
Christoff also called for â€œa concerted focus on the United Arab Emirates,â€ which has historically close ties to Iran and â€œis now the number-one exporter of goods and servicesâ€ to the Islamic Republic.
The panel was weighing the effectiveness of recent legislation aimed at sharply tightening the economic vise on Iran over what the West charges is a covert nuclear-weapons program and Tehran insists is a civilian-power effort.
Republican Representative Dan Burton said he was â€œnot optimistic it is going to workâ€ because of the presidentâ€™s power to waive key sanctions in the name of national security.
â€œThis may be one of the last chances we have,â€ said Burton, who drew parallels to Adolf Hitlerâ€™s rise in 1930s Germany and warned that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could â€œbe equated with, possibly, Hitler.â€
Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich heaped scorn on US officials whose warnings about military action against Iran suggest they think â€œwe can afford still another war,â€ with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. â€œWhat we ought to be looking for is a more effective means to engage Iran,â€ he said. â€œItâ€™s pretty clear that sanctions have been proved to be a failed policy.â€
The US has hailed a new round of UN sanctions against Iran, as well as fresh sanctions adopted by the US Congress, and punitive steps taken by the European Union, Australia, and Canada.
The moves aim to get Iran to freeze its uranium-enrichment program and revive moribund talks between Iran and six world powers â€“ Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the US.