Iran sanctions bill delayed
Giuliani eyes ‘diplomatic’ end to Turkish man’s case: lawyer
WASHINGTON, April 5, (Agencies): A bill to slap new sanctions on Iran has been delayed in the US Senate due to concerns about Iran’s May presidential election, in which conservative hardliners hope to defeat moderate President Hassan Rouhani, US lawmakers said on Tuesday.
A group of Democratic and Republican senators introduced the bill in March seeking to impose tighter US sanctions on Iran over ballistic missile launches and other non-nuclear activities, echoing a harder line on Tehran espoused by Republican President Donald Trump.
But on Tuesday, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker, said the bill would not move forward for now.
“We’ve got a Iran sanctions bill that has a number of co-sponsors that wasn’t able to markup at present because of concerns about how the European Union might react and (Iranian) elections that are coming up,” Corker said during a hearing on the EU as a US partner in dealings with Russia.
A markup is when a committee meets to debate legislation and to consider amendments.
Corker was a co-sponsor of the new sanctions bill, as were several other Democratic and Republican members of the Foreign Relations Committee.
As he has campaigned, Rouhani has called for greater individual freedoms and highlighted as a signature achievement the 2015 diplomatic breakthrough reached with the United States and other world powers, in which Iran curbed its nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions.
The lawmakers who wrote the bill said it had been written specifically not to interfere with the nuclear accord.
But Iran has suggested that it would consider past proposed sanctions bills violations of the international pact reached during the administration of former US president Barack Obama, a Democrat.
Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and a former US attorney general are seeking a “diplomatic solution” to resolving charges that a prominent Turkish businessman helped Iran evade US sanctions, a defense lawyer said Tuesday, insisting that their actions — including meeting Turkey’s president — weren’t intended to derail prosecutors.
“We’ve acted aboveboard,” attorney Ben Brafman told a Manhattan judge as he explained that he told prosecutors last month that Giuliani and ex-US Attorney-General Michael Mukasey were going to meet Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as part of their work on behalf of Reza Zarrab. “Nobody was trying to hide their involvement.”
He said Mukasey, a former Manhattan federal judge who served as attorney general under president George W. Bush, also informed Attorney-General Jeff Sessions before the trip.
Brafman said there was nothing wrong with his client hiring Mukasey and Giuliani, a former Manhattan US attorney and a close supporter and adviser to President Donald Trump, “in an attempt to explore whether there may be a diplomatic solution to this case.”