Iran has responded angrily to new sanctions imposed on its financial sector by the European Union and called them “illegal”. The latest sanctions include an asset freeze on Iran's largest state bank, Bank Melli, and visa bans on senior officials including the defense minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar and the head of Iran's Nuclear Energy Organization, Gholamreza Aghazadeh. Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said the move by the EU was "illegal" and he made clear it would not slow Iran's nuclear activities. Hosseini claimed the sanctions would strengthen the determination of Iranians "to establish their obvious rights and will not help to create an appropriate atmosphere to resolve the issue through diplomatic channels".
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana had recently handed Iran an offer of economic and other benefits proposed by the United States, Russia, China, Britain, Germany and France to try to convince it to halt uranium enrichment. Iranian officials have repeatedly ruled out suspending uranium enrichment. Analysts were quoted by the 'Reuters' news agency as saying that Western companies were increasingly becoming wary of investing in Iran even though its windfall crude oil export earnings, which its oil minister estimates at US$ 6 billion per month, were helping to cushion the impact of the sanctions.
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