WASHINGTON: The United States imposed sanctions on Thursday on firms it said had transported or sold Iranian petroleum or petrochemical products in violation of US restrictions, including two companies based in China.
The sanctions are part of a Washington push to curb Iranian oil smuggling and come as efforts to revive Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal have stalled in part due to increasingly strained ties between the Islamic Republic and the West.
In a statement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the sanctions target 11 firms and 20 affiliated shipping vessels that had facilitated Iran’s petroleum and petrochemical trade.
“These designations underscore our continued efforts to enforce our sanctions against Iran,” Blinken said.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York accused the Biden administration of “basically repeating the failed maximum pressure policy of the former US government,” referring to former President Donald Trump’s administration.
“Iran has gotten used to these sanctions, but if the US wants to return to JCPOA (the Iran nuclear deal) one day, it will be challenging for the US government to lift all of them,” Iran’s UN mission told Reuters.
Two of the sanctioned firms are based in China, according to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. The sanctions freeze the firms’ US assets and generally bar Americans from dealing with them.
The US issued the sanctions under a 2018 US executive order that restored sanctions targeting Iran’s oil, banking and transportation sectors.
Trump imposed the 2018 order after abandoning the 2015 nuclear deal, which reined in Iran’s nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions. President Joe Biden’s administration has tried but failed to revive the pact over the last two years.
On Thursday, the Treasury Department issued a general license authorizing limited transactions with the 20 sanctioned vessels under what it called a “wind-down” period through June 29, a document on its website showed.
New US sanctions target Iranian petroleum, petrochemical trade
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New US sanctions target Iranian petroleum, petrochemical trade
- Blinken said the sanctions target 11 firms and 20 affiliated shipping vessels that had facilitated Iran’s petroleum and petrochemical trade
Iran offers concessions on nuclear program
- Atomic energy chief says it will dilute enriched uranium if US eases sanctions
TEHRAN: Iran offered on Monday to dilute its highly enriched uranium if the US lifts sanctions.
Mohammad Eslami, head of the country’s Atomic Energy Organization, did not specify whether this included all sanctions on Iran or only those imposed by the US.
The new move follows talks on the issue in Oman last week that both sides described as positive and constructive.
Diluting uranium means mixing it with blend material to reduce the enrichment level, so that the final product does not exceed a given enrichment threshold.
Before US and Israeli strikes on its nuclear facilities in June last year, Iran had been enriching uranium to 60 percent, far exceeding the 3.67 percent limit allowed under the now-defunct nuclear agreement with world powers in 2015.
According to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, Iran is the only state without nuclear weapons that is enriching uranium to 60 percent.
The whereabouts of more than 400 kg of highly enriched uranium that Iran possessed before the war is also unknown. UN inspectors last recorded its location on June 10. Such a stockpile could allow Iran to build more than nine nuclear bombs if enrichment reached 90 percent.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged Iranians on Monday to resist foreign pressure.
“National power is less about missiles and aircraft and more about the will and resolve of the people,” Khamenei said. “Show it again and frustrate the enemy.”
Nevertheless, despite this defiance, Iran has signaled it could come to some kind of deal to dial back its nuclear program and avoid further conflict with Washington.
