Washington, May 31: The former US secretary of state has acknowledged that sanctions against Iran are a nonstarter, adding ‘clever’ Iranians will find a way around them.
In an exclusive interview on ABC’s ‘This Week’ program, Colin Powell said he doesn’t think the newly-proposed UN sanctions regime against Iran will work.
“The Iranians have been around for thousands of years trading and selling and getting around various constraints and whatnot,” the former secretary of state told the ABC.
“They’re very clever. And they know what sanctions might be coming. And I’m sure that they have done their own planning and have their own counter-sanctions strategy,” Powell said.
Powell explained that he doesn’t believe the sanctions will push Tehran to give up its nuclear program.
“I think we may have to eventually reach a point where we say, well, maybe we have to accept a nuclear program that’s designed strictly for power generation and for their medical research reactor,” he said.
——-Agencies