Iranian factions are gearing up for crucial parliamentary elections tomorrow as the Islamic republic is facing a third set of UN sanctions over its nuclear programme, reports Rasha Saad The UN Security Council Monday imposed its third set of sanctions on Iran in the space of 15 months to punish Tehran's repeated refusals to suspend its uranium enrichment activities. The council's resolution authorises the inspection of cargo shipments to and from Iran suspected of carrying prohibited equipment, tightens the monitoring of Iranian financial institutions, and extends travel bans and asset freezes against persons and companies involved in Iran's nuclear programme. Specifically, the resolution adds 13 names to the existing list of five individuals and 12 companies subject to travel and asset restrictions. The new names include persons with direct responsibility for building fast-spinning centrifuges that enrich uranium ore, and a brigadier general engaged in "efforts to get round the sanctions" imposed by two earlier resolutions. The new measures also ban all trade and supply of so-called dual-use items -- materials and technologies that can be adapted for military as well as civilian ends. Iran insists its enrichment work is only to produce fuel for nuclear reactors that would generate electricity, and hence is in compliance with the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki described the new round of sanctions as lacking "technical and legal" justification and would discredit the Security Council. However, as part of a carrot and stick policy towards Iran, the US, Russia, China, Britain and France, along with Germany, also promised an improved package of incentives for Iran to restart negotiations with European Union's Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana. Following the sanctions resolution, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad swiftly rejected any new talks with Solana. Ahmadinejad said Tehran would in the future negotiate only with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted Thursday that world powers would continue to offer Iran incentives to suspend uranium enrichment activities. "[We]... continue to follow a dual track strategy," she told reporters at NATO headquarters. Iranian officials later toned down Ahmadinejad's reaction. Mottaki said that Iran is ready to negotiate with Europe over the Islamic republic's nuclear programme if negotiations would be "meaningful and effective". "We are still supporters of negotiations that have a precise objective, a defined programme and are assured of providing us with results," Mottaki said. Javad Vaeedi, a top Iranian national security official said on Sunday that Iran would only hold talks with the West over its disputed nuclear programme if world powers stopped threatening further punitive measures against Tehran. "The time of using the policy of the carrot and the stick has ended," Vaeedi said on the sidelines of a security conference in Tehran. "If they [the West] want to have serious negotiations, in fair conditions and taking into account the interests of the two parties, they must first stop threatening," he added. An IAEA report in February said that while Iran had cooperated in clearing up many of questions over its nuclear programme, it had not responded properly to intelligence forwarded by the US and its allies purportedly showing nuclear weapons technology. In Vienna Monday, Mohamed El-Baradei, director of the IAEA, said that newly disclosed intelligence reports that Iran secretly researched on how to make nuclear weapons were of "serious concern" and would be pursued by his office. "Iran continues to maintain that these alleged weaponisation studies are related to conventional weapons only or [are] fabricated," El-Baradei said in a speech to the agency's 35-country policymaking body. "However, a full-fledged examination of this issue has yet to take place." Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, alleged the intelligence data was "forged and fabricated" and denounced the new Security Council resolution Monday as "irresponsible" and "an arrow aiming at the heart" of the atomic energy agency. The new round of sanctions came as Iran is gearing up for parliamentary elections due tomorrow. In recent weeks, Iran has mounted a media campaign to urge a high turnout, ostensibly to establish the popularity of hardline President Ahmadinejad. Moderates trying to make a comeback in the election complain that their chances of expanding their small number in parliament have been dashed because a government-controlled vetting body barred some of their leading candidates from running. Reformists say they will only be able to contest about 30 per cent of parliamentary seats as a result of the screening. The main election battle is between moderate conservatives opposed to President Ahmadinejad and hardliners who staunchly back his economic populism and anti-American foreign policy. Opponents have criticised Ahmadinejad's handling of the foundering economy as incompetent and his aggressive stance towards the West as counterproductive. Reformist former president Mohamed Khatami urged people to vote for the remaining reformists as the only way to counter the hardline establishment's grip on power. The hardliners believe they are the "main current in the establishment and that anybody not supporting them is outside the establishment," said the former president. The reformists have to "disrupt this game," he said, by "participating in the elections" and fighting despite their small numbers. Further weakening reformists, the hardline- dominated parliament last month banned the publication of election posters with photographs of candidates, saying it wanted to minimise waste of paper and to keep the city's walls clean. The law was seen as another way to bolster hardliners, who have more access to official media. Hardliners regained control of the 290-seat legislature after the Guardian Council barred thousands of reformists from running in the last parliamentary elections in 2004.
