Officials mock some targets of U.S. sanctions
TEHRAN — The “largest-ever” U.S. sanctions list targeting Iran drew mockery from Iranian officials on Tuesday for including mothballed Boeing 747s, a bank that closed years earlier and a sunken oil tanker that exploded off China months ago.
However, the new list of sanctions, which also aims to cut Iran’s vital oil industry off from international sales, also included for the first time its state airline and its atomic energy commission, further highlighting the maximalist approach of President Trump’s administration.
Trump pulled America out of the 2015 nuclear deal Iran struck with world powers in May. United Nations monitors say Iran still abides by the deal, in which it agreed to limit its uranium enrichment in return for the lifting of international sanctions.
The U.S. Treasury Department imposed penalties on more than 700 Iranian and Iranianlinked individuals, entities, aircraft and vessels in the new sanctions.
Among those are 50 Iranian banks and subsidiaries, and more than 200 people and ships.
However, scattered among the list are surprising entries, like the crude oil tanker Sanchi. That vessel collided with a bulk freighter and caught fire off China’s east coast in January, killing all 32 sailors aboard.
Another entry was Iran’s Tat Bank, which closed in 2012.
Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif took to Twitter to mock some of the targets of the sanctions, describing it as a “desperate” psychological ploy.
“The U.S. designated a bank that was closed 6 years ago, and a ship that sank,” he wrote.
But for the first time, the U.S. targeted Iran Air. It also sanctioned the state carrier’s mothballed fleet of Boeing 747s, which were manufactured in the 1970s.
It also appeared that the U.S. for the first time was directly sanctioning the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the government agency that oversees Iran’s nuclear program. Prior sanctions targeted specific subsidiaries of the organization.
Eshaq Jahangiri, President Hassan Rouhani’s senior vice president, also criticized the sanctions.
“Americans think their list is more effective if it is longer,” Jahangiri said.
Iran is already in the grip of an economic crisis. Its national currency, the rial, now trades at 150,000 to one U.S. dollar; a year ago, it was about 40,500. The economic chaos sparked mass antigovernment protests at the end of last year, resulting in nearly 5,000 reported arrests and at least 25 people being killed.