Nuclear, Tehran emphasizes

“With Italy good relations”

TEHRAN – The relations between Iran and Italy, one of the main economic partners of the Islamic Republic, remain “good” and continue “in a normal way”, despite the Italian government has stressed that it wants to firmly apply the sanctions voted by the Security Council of the UN. The spokesman of the Foreign Ministry of Tehran, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, said today.

Hosseini, who spoke at his usual weekly press conference, responded to a journalist who pointed out how Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema affirmed Italy’s willingness to apply “rigorously” the sanctions provided in Resolution 1737 of the UN towards Iran. D’Alema made this statement on January 26 in Brussels, where he discussed the Iranian situation in a bilateral meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO heads of diplomacy.

“Our relations with European countries and with Italy – said Hosseini – are good and appropriate and continue in a normal way. The UN resolution provides for restrictions and sanctions relating to atomic weapons and ballistic missiles, which does not affect the Iran: Any country that intends to have relations and cooperation with us, apart from this resolution, may have them, and there are countries that continue this cooperation “.

Resolution 1737, approved by the UN Security Council on December 23 in the face of Tehran’s repeated refusals to suspend uranium enrichment, does not include economic and commercial sanctions, but the blockade of imports of nuclear and missile technology in Iran, what Tehran says he does not need anyway.

January 28, 2007