Today the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has announced that the nation will postpone talks with western countries as a direct counterattack for the new UN sanctions imposed on the country, aimed at preventing its uranium enrichment nuclear programme activities.

Speaking from Tehran, he stated that this latest measure is, “a punishment to teach them a lesson to know how to have a dialogue with nations,” and alluded that there is more behind the western world’s attempts to halt this programme.

Ahmadinejad recently told press that these sanctions, which are the latest in four rounds that have taken place in December 2006, March 2007, March 2008 and June 2010, reflected western and United States attempts at “putting the brakes on Iran’s progress in nuclear technology,” and also, “to keep Iran from becoming an economic and industrial power.”

The Iranian government highlights that any uranium enrichment activity has been orchestrated within the rulings of the Atomic Energy Agency, and various news reports note that in order to reach the power required for the worst of some western fears, such as a nuclear bomb, the nation would have to do a lot more. The real question is what might Iran be working to achieve, and what might “the western and US” at large predict this to be?

Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, has expressed fears of his own and notes that “the international community does not recognise the Iranian nuclear programme as transparent,” when he spoke to press at the recent G20 Summit.

Calls from the US senate last week, as pressure for the latest round of sanctions mounted, were for blocking Iran from international markets and, essentially, starving the country’s economy out. The United Arab Emirates Central Bank has reportedly requested the freezing of 11 Iran-related accounts, also. It is unclear exactly why the nuclear activity within Iran is continually so secret. It is unclear exactly what is troubling “the west and US” the most in this equation, but if no progress has been made since December 2006, this situation shows no signs of a successful outcome. Could this be our next big energy headline?  Watch this space…