TEHRAN: An Iranian nuclear scientist was killed by a bomb placed on his car on Wednesday in an attack Tehran’s deputy governor blamed on Israel, raising the diplomatic temperature in a stand-off with the West over Iran’s nuclear programme.
The bombing, which a city official said was similar to attacks a year ago on nuclear scientists in Iran, came as the United States sought to persuade a sceptical China to help efforts to toughen sanctions against Iran.
“The bomb was a magnetic one and the same as the ones previously used for the assassination of the scientists, and is the work of the Zionists (Israelis),” Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency quoted Tehran’s Deputy Governor Safarali Baratloo as saying.
Fars said the victim was a “nuclear scientist” who “supervised a department at Natanz Uranium Enrichment Facility”.
New US sanctions against Iran have started to bite. The rial currency lost 20 per cent of its value against the dollar in the past week and Iran has threatened to shut the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of trade oil passes.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, visiting Beijing, appealed for Chinese cooperation on nuclear non-proliferation, while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Iran’s move to enrich uranium near the city of Qom was “especially troubling”.
“This step once again demonstrates the Iranian regime’s blatant disregard for its responsibilities and that the country’s growing isolation is self-inflicted,” Clinton said in a statement that followed Iran’s announcement it had started enrichment in the Fordow mountain bunker complex.
Iran’s decision to carry out enrichment work deep underground at Fordow could make it much harder for US or Israeli forces to carry out veiled threats to use force against Iranian nuclear facilities. The move to Fordow could narrow a time window for diplomacy to avert any attack.
The renewed tensions over the nuclear programme, which Iran insists is purely for civilian use but Western powers suspect has military goals, have driven oil prices higher, with Brent crude up more than 5 per cent since the start of the year to above 113 dollars a barrel.
US President Barack Obama approved a law on New Year’s Eve that will sanction financial institutions dealing with Iran’s central bank, a move that makes it difficult for consumers to pay for Iranian oil.
The European Union has brought forward to January . 23 a ministerial meeting that is likely to confirm an embargo on oil purchases, and big importers of Iranian oil are moving to secure alternative supplies. (Reuters)