Washington is worried that Iran continues to attract investment from China despite a new round of UN Security Council sanctions imposed on Tehran, a US official says.

Chinese companies were “aggressive” in investing in Iran’s oil and gas fields, Joseph Christoff, head of the Government Accountability Office’s international affairs and trade department, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Thursday.

Christoff says international and unilateral sanctions were “not changing their (the Chinese) behavior” toward Iran.

Addressing the same panel, another official said that the US will press China to abide by international sanctions on Iran.

“China is of concern to us,” AFP quoted Robert Einhorn, special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control at the State Department, as saying on Thursday. “We need for them to enforce the Security Council resolution,” he said.

Beijing should not “backfill” by doing business with Tehran while other countries are “distancing themselves from Iran,” Einhorn said.

The US and its Western allies accuse Iran of seeking a military nuclear program. Tehran rejects the charges, stressing that as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty it will not forgo its right to peaceful nuclear technology.

The UN Security Council adopted a US-drafted sanctions resolution on June 9. Ever since the US, European Union, Australia, and Canada have adopted unilateral sanctions against Iran.

However, China and Russia, two permanent members of the UNSC, as well as many other countries say they would not abide by the unilateral sanctions.

Israel says Iran sanctions not enough

Repeating its accusations against Tehran’s nuclear program, Israel says sanctions cannot stop a determined Iran from pursuing its nuclear goals.

“They’re determined to get nuclear military capability. We see it,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program on Friday, AFP reported. “I don’t believe that sanctions will work,” he told the US-based cable news channel.

Barak said Israel agreed in essence with the sanctions and that Tel Aviv still believed it was time for sanctions to see whether they worked, but said the measure was not enough. “We have to realize, we cannot wink in front of tough realities, however tough they might be.”

The UN Security Council approved a fourth set of sanctions on Iran in June — a slap in the face of the Islamic republic’s confidence building efforts and a tripartite nuclear swap declaration it signed with Brazil and Turkey in May.

Israel played an active role in helping the United States to persuade the Security Council’s veto-holding members to endorse the US-drafted sanction resolution against Iran.

Barak renewed Tel Aviv’s call for a military action against Tehran.

“We say all the way there should be extremely effective sanctions. If they don’t work, we recommended our friends always not to remove any option from the table. We do the same for ourselves,” Barak stressed.

Remarks by Israeli leaders against Iran’s nuclear program come while Tel Aviv is known to possess the Middle East’s sole nuclear arsenal — estimated to include 300-400 nuclear warheads.

Tel Aviv has maintained a policy of ambiguity on its nuclear stockpile with the assistance of the US.

Iran has repeatedly assured it is committed to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which it is a signatory, arguing that as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency it has the right to civilian nuclear technology.