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Netherlands would back European sanctions on Iran |
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Monday, 17 September 2007 |
 PARIS (AFP) — The Netherlands would support European Union sanctions over Iran's nuclear programme if the UN Security Council fails to agree on new measures, Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said Monday.
"The first effort should be to convince the Security Council to apply more sanctions," he said after talks with his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner in Paris.
"But when the Security Council doesn't agree, I am prepared, I am willing, to apply European Union sanctions in combination with the United States sanctions."
Kouchner, who had called Sunday for the EU to press ahead with its own sanctions against Tehran, explained that he believed they should be "separate from the United Nations sanctions".
"These would be European sanctions that each country, individually, must put in place with its own banking, commercial and industrial system," he said.
Kouchner had warned Sunday that the world should brace for a possible war over Iran's nuclear drive, which has already been the target of two sets of UN sanctions. |
