Post by Logan on Jan 27, 2016 20:04:38 GMT -6
PARIS (AP) — France has asked its European Union partners to consider new sanctions on Iran for its recent missile tests, officials have told The Associated Press, even as Paris welcomed the president of the Islamic Republic, which is flush with funds from the lifting of other sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program.
The ambiguous signals emerging Wednesday from France came as President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate elected in 2013, signed billions of dollars in business deals on an earlier stop in Italy and met with Pope Francis in the first such Iranian foray into Europe since 1999.
France hopes for similarly lucrative deals during Rouhani's two-day visit, along with regional peacemaking efforts as the once-pariah state emerges from decades of isolation.
But amid the courting of Iran, two officials from EU nations told AP that the request for new sanctions came shortly after the EU and the U.S. lifted sanctions on Tehran on Jan. 16 in exchange for U.N. certification that Iran had scaled back its nuclear programs. Iran said those programs were peaceful but critics feared it wanted to build nuclear weapons.
Read more: bigstory.ap.org/article/7dcb3c7b99ff45e3a407c679693bf917/iranian-president-free-speech-cant-include-insulting-faith
The ambiguous signals emerging Wednesday from France came as President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate elected in 2013, signed billions of dollars in business deals on an earlier stop in Italy and met with Pope Francis in the first such Iranian foray into Europe since 1999.
France hopes for similarly lucrative deals during Rouhani's two-day visit, along with regional peacemaking efforts as the once-pariah state emerges from decades of isolation.
But amid the courting of Iran, two officials from EU nations told AP that the request for new sanctions came shortly after the EU and the U.S. lifted sanctions on Tehran on Jan. 16 in exchange for U.N. certification that Iran had scaled back its nuclear programs. Iran said those programs were peaceful but critics feared it wanted to build nuclear weapons.
Read more: bigstory.ap.org/article/7dcb3c7b99ff45e3a407c679693bf917/iranian-president-free-speech-cant-include-insulting-faith