The U.S. Treasury, seeking to stop Iran from funding its nuclear-arms program, extended sanctions to four domestic companies linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the state-owned shipping line.
The financial sanctions target the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines and entities suspected of financing the guard corps, according to an e-mailed statement from the U.S. Treasury Department today.
The companies are Bonyad Taavon Sepah and its director Parviz Fattah, Ansar Bank, Mehr Bank and Moallem Insurance Company, the statement said. The Treasury also designated Liner Transport Kish for providing weapons and other material support to the Iran-backed Shiite Muslim Hezbollah movement, listed by the U.S. as a terrorist organization.
“Our policy will be to continue to impose pressure on Iran so long as it fails to live up to its international obligations,” Stuart Levey, the Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in comments to reporters in Washington. He said Iran’s government was facing “real anxiety” from the ongoing effort to shut down its financial channels.
The Treasury said the sanctions are having an effect. The shipping line has defaulted on “multiple loans of more than $500 million” in Hong Kong and Singapore as it has lost access to its financing channels, the department said.
Obama Sanctions
“This is part of the ongoing cat-and-mouse game” between Iran and the international community, Philip J. Crowley, State Department spokesman, told reporters today in Washington. “They try to do everything that they can to evade these sanctions, and as they take actions we also take corresponding actions.”
President Barack Obama this year expanded the scope of sanctions against Iran in a move that allowed the U.S. to punish foreign suppliers of gasoline to Iran, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ No. 2 producer, and punish firms suspected of providing a financial lifeline to the regime.
The United Nations Security Council in June adopted a resolution calling for trade and financial penalties for Iran as part of measures to keep the country from developing nuclear weapons. Iran says it is enriching uranium for peaceful purposes.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc, France’s Total SA, Italy’s Eni SpA and Norway’s Statoil ASA said in September they would stop investing in Iran. Tougher U.S. sanctions on Iran are costing the Islamic regime as much as $60 billion in lost energy investments, according to figures supplied by the State Department.
After a year of stalemate, Iran agreed in negotiations on Dec. 7 to more talks on its atomic program, while saying it would “absolutely not” suspend uranium enrichment. The next negotiations are planned for January in Istanbul between Iran and the so-called P5+1 group — comprising China, France, Germany, Russia, the U.K. and U.S.
