Back off or suffer oil shock: Tehran

OIL-rich Iran has raised the stakes in the standoff over its nuclear program, warning that any attempt to impose sanctions on its activities would lead to an energy crisis in the US and Europe.

Referring the Islamist state to the UN Security Council, as the US had urged, would be “playing with fire”, Iran’s top nuclear official said yesterday.

“The first to suffer will be Europe and the US themselves,” Hassan Rowhani said at a Tehran conference on nuclear technology and sustainable development. “(It) would cause problems for the regional energy market, for the European economy and even more so for the US.”