Tehran turns towards EU as US curbs loom
washington — The United States will add 700 individuals and entities to its Iran blacklist and push the SWIFT global banking network to cut Tehran off when it reimposes sanctions on Monday in a “maximum pressure” effort to cripple the country’s economy.
US officials said they were determined to force Tehran to give up its nuclear activities and what the US says is broad support for “terrorism” in the region, reimposing severe economic penalties six months after President Donald Trump’s administration quit the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
There will also be sanctions to cut off Tehran’s ability to export oil, the country’s most crucial foreign exchange earner, though United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said eight importers would be given exemptions in exchange for slowing their purchases — a bid to avoid upsetting the global crude market.
The reimposition of sanctions “is aimed at depriving the regime of the revenues it uses to spread death and destruction around the world,” Pompeo said.
“Our ultimate aim is to compel Iran to permanently abandon its well-documented outlaw activities and behave as a normal country.”
When Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal struck between world powers and Iran, he began reimposing sanctions that had been suspended or removed by his predecessor Barack Obama. That process will be completed starting from midnight on Sunday, US eastern time, when sanctions on the regime’s banks, shippers, shipbuilders and oil sector are imposed.
The impact remains in question as other countries, particularly Washington’s European allies, are resisting joining its effort to economically strangle the Tehran regime.
Pompeo said the US would grant exemptions to eight countries that have pledged to or have already cut back on purchases of petroleum from Iran, which has long depended on crude exports to power its economy.
He did not name the eight countries, but they are believed to include India, Japan, South Korea, and possibly China. — dubai — Iran called on Saturday for European assurances of support in the face of Washington’s intent to reimpose sanctions on vital Iranian oil sales to force Tehran to curb its nuclear, missile and regional activities.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif spoke with the EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, and his counterparts from Germany, Sweden and Denmark about European measures to counter the US sanctions, the Iranian state news agency Irna reported. “Mogherini and the European ministers ... highlighted the importance of the finance ministers’ commitment to Europe’s financial mechanism to save the Iran nuclear deal and said the mechanism will be operational in the coming days,” Irna said.
The EU, France, Germany and Britain, said they regretted President Donald Trump’s decision to restore curbs.
“Our aim is to protect European economic actors who have legitimate commercial exchanges with Iran, in line with European legislation and the UNs’ Security Council resolution 2231,” Mogherini and the foreign ministers and finance ministers of the three countries said. —