World Bank snubs inquiry, vows a big loan to Iran

Earlier this year, the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, who before taking that office served in a top Bush administration foreign policy post, declined a privately made request from Rep. Mark Kirk, a Republican from Illinois, to suspend the loans. World Bank spokesmen told that the bank will go ahead with the loans.

Kirk said that senior National Security Council staff told him that they did not think the World Bank loans were helpful to the American strategy of applying economic pressure to Iran to persuade Tehran to end its enrichment of uranium in Natanz. A spokesman for the National Security Council offered no comment when asked on Thursday and again on Sunday. For now, Kirk is pursuing pressure on the World Bank through his post on the appropriations subcommittee that funds foreign operations.

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