The Iran triangle

PANAMA. A New York attorney attorney is in Panama to investigate allegations that Panamanian and Venezuelan banks are acting as a go-between for Iran to transfer state funds to be invested in the United States.

Manhattan attorney, Robert Morgenthau, revealed his suspicions about the bank activities in a press release entitled: “Relations between Venezuela and Iran: the development of a crisis?”

In the bulletin, Morgenthau shows how the Iranian government uses Panamanian and Venezuelan bank accounts as “nest eggs”.

Through these accounts, the International Development Bank (IDB), an autonomous branch of the Export Development Bank of Iran which has its headquarters in Caracas, uses other bank accounts in both countries to invest money in the United States and, in this way, avoids economic sanctions.

Both the US and Europe have for several years imposed strong economic sanctions against Iran because of its nuclear development programme which Iran argues is to provide electricity, not weapons.

Western powers are becoming frustrated by what they have called Tehran's "persistent defiance and point-blank refusal" to suspend uranium enrichment and its avoidance of negotiations as demanded by Security Council resolutions since 2006.

Ahmadinejad is due to attend the UN General Assembly in New York later this month where Iran's nuclear program will dominate behind-the-scene deliberations.t

New proposals presented by Iran earlier this week offer wide-ranging talks with the West but are silent about its nuclear program.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, whose country has veto power in the Security Council, ruled out the possibility of UN sanctions on Iran's oil sector.

The United States and Europe were skeptical about the proposal. "It's as vague as all the previous so-called proposals," a diplomat said.