Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept. 28 / Trend , E.Ostapenko/
Iran could be an accepted partner in international politics if there might be a common way to tackle current and urgent issues - the nuclear issue is just one of it, believes Konstantin Kosten, the European Research Fellow on Iran.
"All actors have to weight their economic and political interest towards Iran against their key interest to pursue Iran of a comprehensive approach," Kosten wrote to Trend in an email.
The U.S. and other Western countries accuse Iran of developing nuclear weapons under the guise of peaceful nuclear energy program. Tehran rejects these accusations, claiming that its nuclear program is aimed solely at meeting the country's electricity needs.
Iran feels itself deprived of its right for civil-used nuclear energy and the sanction's-based policy in Iran is interpreted as one of many approaches to bring the political system there down, believes Kosten, Programm Officer North Africa and Near and Middle East Program
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP).
Western officials have repeatedly warned that if they cannot hammer out an agreement to freeze Iran's uranium enrichment program by late 2009, the country may face new sanctions.
The likelihood that the decision to impose sanctions against Iran may be approved is rather high, but one should not expect the positive effect of the sanction-based policy, said Kosten.
"An agreement [on sanctions] might be possible despite of the latest news on Chinese fuel delivering to Iran," he said. "I do not believe in positive effects regarding a strict sanctions-based policy on Iran."
On Thursday, the Chinese authorities reiterated that China opposes imposing additional sanctions on Iran and urged for more effective diplomatic measures to resolve the problem. Since September, the Chinese companies are actively exporting gasoline to Iran, whose supplies are going to limit the United States and its allies.
Earlier, the Head of the EU on Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana expressed his confidence that Russia and China will not mind if the Western powers once again call for a tightening of sanctions against Iran.
Despite the possibility of an agreement on new sanctions I don't think that would last for long time because of the contradiction regarding every actor's political and economic interest towards Iran, Kosten believes.
On Oct. 1, Geneva will host a new round of the talks between the delegations of Iran and the six major powers (the five permanent UN Security Council members + Germany).
"If in the scheduled talks on 1st of October, a continued negotiation-process could be the common result, that would be a major progress," Kosten said. "Otherwise, the vicious circle of alone sanction-based policy against a more and more reluctant Iran would continue - with all its dangers of escalation."
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