US to impose new sanctions on Iranian financial sector

The United States is preparing to impose new sanctions on Iran's financial industry, a Republican congressional aide said, Reuters reported, according to the Washington Post.

The measure will exclude Iran from the global financial sector. This announcement comes after Washington stated that practically all the United Nations sanctions against Teheran have been returned, a measure that has been rejected by the key European allies and most of the members of the UN Security Council (SC), including Russia and China.

Just a few weeks ago, US sanctions came into force on more than two dozen individuals and entities involved in Iran's nuclear, missile and conventional weapons programmes, according to a senior US official.

This decision was taken unilaterally by the Trump Administration and conflicts with the nuclear agreement signed in 2015 by the United Nations and from which Trump withdrew in 2018.

"Illegal and ineffective" were the words used by the Iranian authorities to describe this reinstatement of UN sanctions by Washington and rejected by the Security Council. ) The Persian Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned that this step poses a "threat to international peace and security and an unprecedented threat to the UN and the SC". In a statement released on Sunday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said that Washington "is not only flouting all the principles of international law and the UN Charter, but is also openly challenging the international community through intimidation.

Iranian President Hassan Rohani warned that "if the United States wants to continue its harassment and take a practical step - to reinstate sanctions - it will be met with a firm response from Iran". The commander-in-chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Hosein Salami, is sure that Iran is capable of "destroying the interests of the United States and capturing its bases" in the Middle East. The Iranian parliament is immersed in the process of preparing a bill which, in the event that international sanctions are re-established, would allow the Persian country to cease to implement the Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which allows IAEA inspections without prior notice at any facility.

The United States' sanctions have paralysed the Iranian economy. President Hassan Rouhani said in June that his country was experiencing the most difficult year because of the economic pressure from the United States and the coronavirus pandemic that has hit the Islamic Republic hard.

Iran's oil exports, a key source of revenue for the OPEC member, had fallen to their lowest levels in decades earlier this year, but Thursday's move, experts said, could affect the Islamic Republic's ability to secure humanitarian goods such as medicines.