VOA标准英语2013--Iran Willing to Resume Nuclear Talks as Sanctions Bite Hard

Iran Willing to Resume Nuclear Talks as Sanctions Bite Hard

U.S. President Barack Obama last week signed off on a new round of sanctions targeting Iran’s energy and shipping 1 sectors 2. They build on a range of unilateral and multilateral sanctions against Iranian industry and banks.

The measures are aimed at curbing 3 Iran’s nuclear program. The West claims Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons; Tehran says the program is for civilian 4 purposes.

Iran has indicated it is ready to hold a fresh round talks with international powers - the so-called P5+1 - the United States, Britain, Russia, China, and France, plus Germany.

Jamie Ingram, of IHS Global Insight, says the sanctions are forcing Iran to the negotiating table.

“This is hitting Iranians hard in the pocket,” said Ingram. "Also, with the restrictions 5 on imports, there are growing food shortages.”

EU trade with Iran - even in permitted commodities - has fallen off dramatically in recent months. That’s because European banks fear the wrath 6 of the U.S., says Nigel Kushner, chief executive of W Legal which advises firms on trading with Iran.

“The Americans will have a quiet word with them, one suspects, and asks them not to do it,” said Kushner. "So they won’t do it even though they are permitted to do it. I was speaking yesterday with a Swiss bank who have said, ‘We want to accept payments for medical goods, or humanitarian 7 goods that are going to Iran, but we’re too scared to do it.' ”

Kushner says Iran is looking to countries beyond the jurisdiction 8 of the sanctions to get what it needs.

“It might take longer, it might more cumbersome 9, and it might cost them more, but they will often look to countries like China, possibly Turkey, who don’t need to comply,” said Kushner. 

The banking 10 sanctions are causing the most pain in Iran, says analyst 11 Ali Fathollah-Nejad of the University of London.

“You have huge financial and banking sanctions, which is the eye of the storm from which every other civilian branches of the economy are then crippled,” said Fathollah-Nejad. 

He argues the West must put the sanctions up for negotiation 12 at any upcoming talks if a diplomatic solution is to be found.

“In terms of its economic development, in terms of the well-being 13 of its population, in terms of the well-being of its civil society, is something that Iranians inside and outside the country do care a lot about,” said Fathollah-Nejad. "And this is something that has to be put on the table.”

If the talks between Iran and the P5+1 go ahead, analysts 14 expect a focus on short-term confidence-building rather than a solution to the crisis.

The sanctions against Iran, meanwhile, are a hot topic in Washington after President Obama announced his pick of Chuck Hagel to be the new secretary of defense 15.

Hagel, a former Republican senator, is on record in the past as opposing unilateral sanctions against Iran. And if international talks with Iran fail, Hagel and the Pentagon would find themselves in the midst of a U.S. decision of whether to strike Iran militarily.