Iran's Khamenei warns West against military action, oil sanctions
Tehran (Platts)--3Feb2012/802 am EST/1302 GMT
"The threat of war is detrimental to the United States. The war
itself is ten times more detrimental to the United States. Why is that
so? Because the threats show the US inability to approach by dialogue
and reason," he said.
Khamenei said international sanctions had strengthened Iran rather than
weakened it because they had empowered the Islamic Republic to develop
its own domestic capabilities and had also boosted its standing in the
region.
"They said over and over again that the sanctions are paralyzing and
painful. We benefit from the sanctions," he said.
"When we are sanctioned, we turn to domestic talents and capacities. We
grow domestically. If we were not sanctioned in the issue of weapons,
today we wouldn't have such strange advances. If they had built the
nuclear power plant of Bushehr, we wouldn't have progressed in [uranium]
enrichment," he said.
"These sanctions aim at striking a blow to us, but in fact they serve us
because of the reasons that I mentioned," he said.
"Iran will not back down on the nuclear issue," Khamenei said. "They
repeatedly say in their threats that [they are imposing] the sanctions
against Iran to make it back down in the nuclear issue. It's their
pretext," he said.
"We have made all the scientific, social and technological progress
under sanctions. They closed the doors of science and technology on us.
They blocked the ways for us. They didn't sell the required products,
but we made progress," he said.
The West was now in a weak position both in terms of politics and
economic issues, particularly because of the move to impose oil
sanctions on Iran, Khamenei said.
--Aresu Eqbali,
newsdesk@platts.com
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