LONDON (AP) – Sanctions against Iran are still necessary despite an assessment from U.S. intelligence claiming Tehran has abandoned its pursuit of nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Thursday.
Brown, who has pushed for stronger sanctions to target Iran’s oil and gas industries, said the Iranian regime has not offered a full explanation of why it is enriching uranium.
The United States and allies have long claimed Iran’s nuclear program is a cover for the development of nuclear weapons. Tehran insists it is seeking to generate electricity, but Brown said the regime had offered little proof.
"If Iran is enriching uranium or seeking to do so, in a context where it has no real programs for civil nuclear power, there is a question mark over what motive … and over the purpose of what the enrichment of uranium could, in a very short period of time, lead to," Brown told a parliamentary committee.
"The world is right to insist by sanctions that Iran comes back into line," Brown said.
