TEHRAN, June 24 (AFP): Iran Tuesday condemned the European Union's adoption of new sanctions over its controversial nuclear drive, warning that the measures could damage fresh diplomatic efforts to solve the crisis.
The foreign ministry accused the bloc of "double standards" in imposing the sanctions just over a week after world powers presented Iran with a new package of proposals aimed at ending the standoff.
"This illegal and contradictory approach of double standards -- at a time when packages are being studied -- is meaningless and is strongly denounced," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said in a statement.
Such measures "will waste European opportunities and will not create a suitable atmosphere for solving the matter through diplomacy," he warned.
The measures, approved Monday during a meeting of EU agriculture and fisheries ministers in Luxembourg, will stop the operations of Bank Melli, Iran's largest, at its European offices in London, Hamburg and Paris.
The move also adds another 20 individuals and 15 organisations to the EU's visa-ban and assets-freeze lists.
The EU move, running alongside a string of UN sanctions against Iran adopted since 2006, aims at persuading Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities, which the West says it fears could be used to make a nuclear weapon.
But Hosseini warned that "this kind of behaviour will make the Iranian nation and government more determined in obtaining their rights." Using a policy of "carrot and stick" against Iran would have no effect, he added.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana visited Tehran on June 14 to present a cooperation offer to Iran on behalf of the six major countries involved in the dossier -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.
Meanwhile: An adviser of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said there was a plot to assassinate the Iranian president during a U.N. food crisis summit in Italy earlier this month, an Iranian daily reported on Tuesday. It came a few days after Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West, accused the United States and its allies of plotting to kidnap and kill him during a visit to neighboring Iraq in March.
Presidential adviser Ali Zabihi said Ahmadinejad's policies since his election in 2005 were threatening "the illegitimate interests" of many foreign powers and domestic circles, the Etemad-e Melli daily reported.
"Therefore they are thinking about his dismissal or assassination," Zabihi said in the northwestern city of Tabriz. A plan to kidnap Ahmadinejad in Baghdad in March and a plot to assassinate him at this month's three-day summit in Rome were part of this, he said, without giving details, adding: "Both of those were aborted with God's help." Ahmadinejad, widely expected to stand for re-election next year, visited Rome on June 3.
Reformist critics of the president have asked why the Iranian government has not lodged an official complaint about the alleged plot. "Another assassination claim," the reformist Mardomsalari said in a front-page headline on Tuesday.
