The Trump administration is reportedly considering sanctions against an Iranian financial body set up to enable humanitarian trade with Europe, a measure that would likely end any possibility of European countries maintaining economic and humanitarian trade with Tehran.
The new sanctions would focus on the Special Trade and Finance Institute, which Iran set up to work opposite INSTEX, a European system created to enable continued humanitarian trade with Iran despite existing US sanctions, Bloomberg reported Monday.
Britain, France and German have been striving to maintain some level of economic dealings with Iran in order to keep alive a 2015 nuclear pact that has faltered since the US pulled out last year and then reimposed sanctions on Iran.
A US official said the STFI is considered part of Iran’s central bank, which is already targeted by US sanctions. Washington also accuses the bank of not having applied international measures against terrorism financing and money laundering, noted the official, who spoke to Bloomberg on condition of anonymity.
European nations had pledged to create the INSTEX mechanism, which would allow Iran to continue to trade for humanitarian goods despite American sanctions. However, that program has yet to really take off, something Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman noted on Monday.
“We haven’t put much hope in INSTEX,” spokesman Abbas Mousavi said, according to Iranian state television. “If INSTEX was going to help us, it would have done so already.” READ MORE
