EU president: EU ready to sanction Iran if necessary

DPA: The European Union is ready if necessary to level sanctions against Iran in the dispute over the Middle Eastern country’s nuclear programme, the EU Commission President and Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates in Lisbon said on Wednesday. Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Lisbon (dpa) – The European Union is ready if necessary to level sanctions against Iran in the dispute over the Middle Eastern country’s nuclear programme, the EU Commission President and Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates in Lisbon said on Wednesday.

The Portuguese statesman’s comments came in response to warnings by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner concerning war with Iran.

‘Europe is ready to do everything within its means to uphold international law in this matter,’ said Portuguese media quoted Socrates as saying.

‘We will naturally fall back on some sort of sanctions if Iran does not obey international law.’

He added that the EU was hoping that Tehran in negotiations would agree not to use nuclear technology for military purposes.

‘If this however does not happen, we are prepared to investigate which for of pressure on Iran should be utilised.’

Kouchner said Sunday that there was ‘no greater crisis today’ than that over Tehran’s developing nuclear programme and mentioned the possibility of war as the worst case scenario.

The West has accused Iran of attempting to produce nuclear weapons, which Tehran denies.