Turkey-Russia-Iran trio aims to mitigate effects of sanctions

WASHINGTON. - The past week has seen Washington slap a raft of punitive actions on Iran, Russia and Turkey.

In response, the three countries have enhanced their coordination, which, in the eyes of US experts, aims to soften the blow of the sanctions and push Washington towards talks to settle disagreements.

The United States announced on Aug. 6 that it would re-impose sanctions on Iran that had been suspended under a landmark 2015 nuclear deal. The first batch of sanctions took effect on August 7, and targeted Tehran’s purchase of US banknotes, trade in gold and other precious metals, the use of graphite, aluminum, steel, coal, and software used in industrial processes.

Another round of sanctions, to be reinstalled on November 5, will be slapped on Iran’s port, energy, shipping and shipbuilding sectors, its petroleum-related transactions, and business deals by foreign financial institutions with the Central Bank of Iran.

On August 8, the US State Department announced the United States would impose new sanctions on Russia over its alleged poisoning of an ex-spy and his daughter in Britain. According to senior State Department officials, the first phase of sanctions will ban the granting of licenses to sell “all national-security sensitive goods or technologies” to Russia.

Unless Russia, within three months since the sanctions become effective, provides “reliable assurances” that it will no longer engage in chemical weapons use and allows on-site inspections by the United Nations or other internationally recognised impartial observers, the second batch of “more draconian” sanctions will be imposed. These would deal a blow to some 70 percent of the Russian economy and result in an approximately 40-percent fall in the workforce.

Later on August 10, US President Donald Trump tweeted that he has authorized to double the tariffs on steel and aluminum products from Turkey to 50 percent and 20 percent respectively.

Earlier this month, Washington has slapped sanction on two Turkish ministers. Trump’s announcement further led to a nosedive in the nation’s currency lira to an all-time low against the U.S. dollar.

Analysts believed that the US actions, as sudden as they appeared, were actually quite targeted: Iran’s energy has been part of its livelihood, and the ban on its rights to purchase dollars would deprive the country of its ability to trade on a dollar-dominant world trade system.

The actions against Russia would affect almost all of its state-funded enterprises, taking a toll on the Russian economy.

The tariffs on Turkey have added to the pressure on the country’s currency as well as the financial markets of the region. David Pollock, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Xinhua that the United States’ actions’ main goal was to create “a lot of popular anger” inside the countries.

“I think that that’s really the main goal of applying this leverage in order to get the people to put pressure on their own governments, to change the policies,” he said. The responses of the three nations to the US pressure campaign show a tilt towards realignment.

After Trump’s tariff tweets, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin over bilateral and regional issues, vowing to continue cooperating on defense and energy.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit Ankara on Monday to meet with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, in a bid to discuss their economic and trade ties, in particular the building of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant and the Turkish Stream Gas pipeline. Any substantive agreement on energy cooperation would be a muchwanted boost to the fuel-thirsty Middle East nation. - Xinhua with Matthew Rusling.