Trump set to extend Iran sanctions relief
WASHINGTON, Sept 14, (Agencies): The Trump administration is poised to extend sanctions relief to Iran, avoiding imminent action that could implode the landmark 2015 nuclear deal.
But the move expected late Thursday comes as the White House seeks ways to find that Tehran is not complying with the agreement. President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the deal, but has yet to pull out of it.
Trump is working against a Thursday deadline to decide whether to extend the sanctions waivers, which were first issued by the Obama administration.
In exchange for Tehran rolling back its nuclear program, the US and other world powers agreed to suspend wideranging oil, trade and financial sanctions that had choked the Iranian economy.
Administration officials say Trump is ready to extend the waivers and that no serious alternatives have been presented. But they cautioned that Trump could still change his mind, and they said he remains determined to “decertify” Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal by a separate, mid-October deadline — a finding that would jeopardize further sanctions relief.
The officials were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Both the sanctions relief and the certification deadlines come amid a broader administration review of Iran policy that is likely to lead to the adoption of a harder line, including the imposition of significant new non-nuclear sanctions, when it is completed next month.
The extension of sanctions relief is expected to be accompanied by a strong statement outlining the administration’s oft-stated complaints that Iran is a destabilizing force in the region.
The statement will set the stage for discussions on the future of the agreement with European allies and others during next week’s United Nations General Assembly as well as the internal administration debate over whether Trump should report to Congress that Iran is in compliance with the deal.
The UN atomic watchdog said earlier this week that Iran
continues to meet its obligations under the accord negotiated among Iran, the US, the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany. But Iran deal opponents inside and outside the administration argue that Tehran’s full compliance, particularly on allowing inspections at military sites, has not been tested and is not yet proven. They also argue that at the very least Iran is violating the spirit of the agreement with destabilizing behavior such as ballistic missile tests that is not specifically covered by the terms of the nuclear deal.
Trump himself, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, said he is inclined not to certify Iranian compliance after having twice found it compliant at earlier deadlines.
Meanwhile, the United States on Thursday imposed economic sanctions on 11 individuals and companies accused of supporting Iran’s Revolutionary Guards or engaging in hostile cyber-attacks on US banks, the Treasury Department announced.
The move to toughen sanctions for Iran’s alleged destabilization of the Middle East contrasted with an expected decision by the White House to continue to exempt Iran from sanctions imposed on its nuclear program which America undertook to remove as its part of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal.
Trump’s administration has criticized this deal, negotiated by the prior Obama administration, but has so far continued to waive the nuclear-related sanctions.
The new sanctions announced Thursday targeted an engineering
company, two air transport firms and an IT company accused of carrying out denial-of-service attacks on at least nine American financial institutions, including major banks and stock exchanges between 2011 and 2012.