{"id":1293,"date":"2006-01-04T22:26:54","date_gmt":"2006-01-05T04:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1293"},"modified":"2006-01-04T23:03:34","modified_gmt":"2006-01-05T05:03:34","slug":"us-freezes-assets-of-two-iran-nuclear-firms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1293","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Freezes Assets of Two Iran Nuclear Firms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/home\/feeds\/afx\/2006\/01\/04\/afx2427669.html\">Bravo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The US government has frozen the assets of two Iranian companies linked to the Islamic republic&#8217;s nuclear drive, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>The Treasury Department said the duo &#8212; Novin Energy Co and Mesbah Energy Co &#8212; were guilty of fostering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).<\/p>\n<p>Its action came a day after Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it plans on Jan 9 to resume research and development into its &#8216;peaceful nuclear energy programme&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>The US and EU have demanded that Iran refrain from all nuclear enrichment activities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s just a start, but there&#8217;s no point in waiting for oft-teased progress from Euro-Iranian negotiations and certainly no need to wait for the United Nations Security Council to actually stir in further inaction.<\/p>\n<p>UPDATE:  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/01\/05\/international\/middleeast\/05iran.html\"><strong>Iran Declares Its Nuclear Plan Nonnegotiable<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Iran vowed Wednesday to proceed with a plan to restart nuclear research next week, though the government has yet to explain to the United Nations&#8217; nuclear monitoring agency what activities it intends to carry out.<\/p>\n<p>Ali Larijani, the senior official in charge of nuclear issues, was quoted on Iranian state television on Wednesday as saying the decision to resume nuclear research was &#8220;nonnegotiable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Responding to criticism that the decision would violate Iran&#8217;s formal agreement with Europe to suspend all uranium conversion and enrichment activities, he said: &#8220;Research has its own definition. It is not related to industrial production. Hence, it was never part of the negotiations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Late Tuesday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took a similar hard line. &#8220;We will not take a step back on our path,&#8221; he was quoted by state television as saying.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If I were suddenly to find myself on the ground in Iran, I&#8217;d be keeping my head up and my eyes on the sky.  Hey, I&#8217;m just <a href=\"http:\/\/discerningtexan.blogspot.com\/2006\/01\/iran-strike-rumors-heating-up.html\">pondering<\/a> the possibilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bravo. The US government has frozen the assets of two Iranian companies linked to the Islamic republic&#8217;s nuclear drive, officials said. The Treasury Department said the duo &#8212; Novin Energy Co and Mesbah Energy Co &#8212; were guilty of fostering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Its action came a day after Iran [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,7,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-central-asia","category-europe","category-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}