{"id":7633,"date":"2012-02-04T01:40:12","date_gmt":"2012-02-03T23:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/02\/update-1-iran-policy-not-swayed-by-phone-firm-s-africa-says\/"},"modified":"2012-02-04T01:40:12","modified_gmt":"2012-02-03T23:40:12","slug":"update-1-iran-policy-not-swayed-by-phone-firm-s-africa-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-1-iran-policy-not-swayed-by-phone-firm-s-africa-says\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 1-Iran policy not swayed by phone firm, S.Africa says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Pretoria says was not influenced by phone firm on Iran<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Turkcell confirms case under way against MTN<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* MTN shares tumble, hit by downgrade<\/p>\n<p> (Recasts, adds analyst comment)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By David Dolan<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>JOHANNESBURG, Feb 3 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa denied on<br \/>\nFriday it had been pressured by MTN Group into backing<br \/>\nTehran&#8217;s nuclear programme and aiding its military when the<br \/>\nJohannesburg-based mobile operator was bidding for a telephone<br \/>\nlicence in Iran.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;South Africa&#8217;s foreign policy is independent and it cannot<br \/>\nbe influenced by anyone,&#8221; Foreign Ministry spokesman Clayson<br \/>\nMonyela said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>MTN is the latest South African company to come under<br \/>\nscrutiny for its dealings in Iran. Petrochemical group Sasol<br \/>\n said in November it may sell its operations there.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The spotlight on South Africa&#8217;s relations with Iran is<br \/>\nuncomfortable for the ruling African National Congress (ANC)<br \/>\ngovernment of President Jacob Zuma.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>While Pretoria has been reluctant to join the West in<br \/>\nimposing sanctions, it has stopped short of open support for<br \/>\nIran, which supplies a quarter of its crude.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Pretoria says was not influenced by phone firm on Iran * Turkcell confirms case under way against MTN * MTN shares tumble, hit by downgrade (Recasts, adds analyst comment) By David Dolan JOHANNESBURG, Feb 3 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa denied on Friday it had been pressured by MTN Group into backing Tehran&#8217;s nuclear programme [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-7633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}