Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili speaks with journalists at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport September 30, 2009, before his departure for talks in Geneva.

A faction of US lawmakers seek to impose tougher sanctions, despite ’positive talks’ between Iran and the world major powers based on Tehran’s latest package of proposals.

On Tuesday, US lawmakers will begin a discussion aimed at tightening existing sanctions against Iran and imposing new bans on Tehran to force Tehran into bowing into their demand.

"I intend to introduce legislation that will arm the administration with the ability to impose tough, targeted sanctions if Iran does not respond to our final diplomatic effort in the coming weeks," the chairman of the Senate banking committee, Christopher Dodd, said in a statement.

"Congress must equip President [Barack] Obama with a full range of tools to deal with the threats posed by Iran," he added.

The action directly opposes Obama Administration’s talk’s with Iran, described as ’constructive’ by all sides. According to the bill proposed by Dodd, the US should impose new sanctions on firms exporting refined petroleum products to Tehran and place severe restrictions on direct imports from Iran to the United States excepting for food and medicines.

Based on the draft legislation, financial institutions and businesses will also be under new sanctions, and the assets of Iranians accused of weapons proliferation would be frozen.

It would also move to cover existing legislation on oil and gas pipelines, and to increase export controls to stop what the US describes as illegal export of sensitive technology.

Debate about putting Iran under higher pressure will come under circumstances that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday hailed last week’s talks between Iran and major world powers as a positive step.

The session in Geneva "was a worthwhile meeting," Clinton said.

She, however, said it was too early to make a comment about the outcome of the negotiations.

"But as the president has said and I and others have also made clear, this is not by any means a stopping point. There is much more to be done. We expect much more," Clinton told CNN in a joint interview with Gates.

She added that "on balance, what came out of the meeting in
Geneva was positive."

The debate on tightening sanctions against the Islamic Republic comes after Iran, in line with its transparency policy over its nuclear activities, announced that the newly constructed Fordo nuclear facility is open to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection.

The Fordo site is the country’s second nuclear plant, after the Natanz facility in central Iran, which will enrich uranium to the 5 percent level suitable for power plant fuel.

ElBaradei, who paid a visit to Tehran at the invitation of head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali-Akbar Salehi, said in Tehran on Sunday that the agency’s inspectors will visit Fordo site, some 160 Kilometers south of Tehran, on October 25.

The developments come a few days after Iranian representatives held talks with diplomats from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - Russia, China, France, Britain and the US - plus Germany (P5+1) in Geneva October 1 on the basis of Iran’s latest package of proposals presented to Western powers.

The seven-and-a-half hour Geneva meeting discussed Iran’s points of view on a range of global issues and the country’s concerns with specific Western policies and activities with six party members avoiding the call to insist on a halt to nuclear activities.

The sides also agreed to continue the talks through October.

Source: PressTV