Iran rejects UN vote on arms, financial sanctions

At the same time major powers, who drafted the resolution, immediately offered new talks on Saturday and renewed their offer of an economic and technological incentive package.

But the sanctions would stay in place until Iran halts the enrichment of uranium and the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, which can be used to make a bomb or to generate electricity.

Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who is holding a press conference on Sunday, told the Security Council after the vote that it had been abused and manipulated by some of its members to take "unjustifiable action" against Iran's peaceful nuclear program.

"I can assure you that pressure and intimidation will not change Iranian policy," he said. "Suspension is neither an option nor a solution."

"The world must know -- and it does -- that even the harshest political and economic sanctions or other threats are far too weak to coerce the Iranian nation to retreat from their legal and legitimate demands," Mottaki said.

Main provisions of the resolution go beyond the nuclear sphere by banning Iran's exports of conventional arms and freezing financial assets abroad of 28 Iranian individuals and entities, including its Bank Sepah, and the commanders of the Revolutionary Guards, including those said to be involved in supporting military movements abroad.

The new measures are a follow-up to a resolution adopted on Dec. 23 banning trade in sensitive nuclear materials and ballistic missiles, as well as also freezing assets of individuals and institutions associated with atomic programs.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in a statement from Brussels that he would contact Ali Larijani, Iran's main negotiator on nuclear issues, "to see whether we can find a route to negotiations."

The foreign ministers of countries that drafted the resolution -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany -- proposed further talks with Iran "to see if a mutually acceptable way can be found to open negotiations," according to a joint statement read by British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry.

U.S. representative Alejandro Wolff warned that adoption of Resolution 1747 sent "a clear and unambiguous message to Iran" that the pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability "will only further isolate Iran and make it less, not more, secure,"

Western diplomats believe the new bans, and those imposed in December, are having an impact on curtailing new investments in Iran but leave the country's oil industry intact.

But Iran's Mottaki, noting the scope of the sanctions, said, "What can harming hundreds of thousands of depositors in Bank Sepah, with a 80-year history in Iran, mean other than confronting ordinary Iranians?"

U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said in Washington the arms embargo was most significant in that it prohibits a transfer of Iranian weapons to Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, the Palestinian Hamas movement, Syria or "to any state or terrorist organization."

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had wanted to speak to the 15-nation council but canceled his appearance. Iran said visas for his flight crew were delivered too late for his plane to arrive in New York before the vote. Washington disputes this.

The big powers held intensive negotiations over the past month and conducted talks until the last minute, first with South Africa and then with Indonesia and Qatar, who wanted a reference to a nuclear-free Middle East, which was inserted into the preamble.

Ambassador Nassir Abdolaziz al-Nasser of Qatar, the only Arab country on the council, spoke against the resolution for its potential to destabilize the Middle East. But he voted in favor, preserving the unanimous vote, after South Africa and Indonesia gave notice they would vote in favor. Reuters