Rooyesh

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday warned that Iran would respond to additional U.N. sanctions with new nuclear advances, in yet another show of defiance to international demands that the country roll back its atomic program. The U.N. Security Council has set a deadline of late May for Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program, warning it will gradually ratchet up its punishments. The council imposed limited sanctions in December and strengthened them slightly last month because of Iran’s refusal to suspend enrichment.

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Javad Zarif, the highest-ranking Iranian diplomat in the United States, made a rare trip to Washington last month. The timing could not have been worse. Five days earlier, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard had seized 15 British sailors in the Persian Gulf. The U.N. Security Council had just imposed new sanctions on Iran for failing to ensure that its nuclear energy program could not be subverted to make the world’s deadliest weapon.

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