The United States said Wednesday that its policy towards Iran has not changed basically, and that the unilateral sanctions imposed on the Asian country would remain, despite the recent easing of the embargo.
“I would say that we have had some easings of the embargo on Iran to allow people-to-people exchanges and contacts, to the benefit of Iranian people and Americans. We do think that we can continue to expand this policy, but basically our fundamental policy towards Iran has not changed,” said Richard Boucher, US State Department spokesman at a press briefing Wednesday.
“The sanctions regime remains in place. We continue to view with grave concern Iran's ongoing support for terrorism, its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, its opposition to the Middle East peace process, and its poor human rights record,” he added.
At the briefing, which Albawaba.com obtained an e-mail copy of, the spokesman said that the closed-door meeting last week between Secretary Madeleine Albright and Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazzi was aimed at finding a solution to the crisis in Afghanistan, rather than US-Iran relations.
“There were no individual meetings or direct discussions between the Secretary and the Iranian Foreign Minister that took place in New York.
“The Secretary's meeting on Friday in the 6+2 is part of our ongoing efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan, and we have worked at other levels with the Iranians in the 6+2 process on the problems of drugs coming out of the region and, more generally, some of the problems from Afghanistan,” Boucher explained.
The US imposes a unilateral embargo on Iran, banning national companies from helping develop Iran’s oil industry.
However, analysts saw as a positive sign the inclusion of the Iraq-based opposition Mujahideen Khalq, on its blacklist of terrorist organizations – Albawaba.com
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