U.S. officials: Int'l community must continue to increase and broaden scope of pressures on Iran

The United States is convinced that the international community must continue to increase and broaden the scope of pressures on Iran because Iran has continued to violate its international obligations and disregard attempts of the international community to start meaningful negotiations over its nuclear program, said U.S. Department of State Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.S. Department of the Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in a joint statement on Iran sanctions.

"Preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons is a top priority of the U.S. Government and we remain deeply concerned about Iran’s nuclear intentions," the statement reads. "We welcome steps such as the European Union’s designation of more than 100 entities and individuals last month and the improved implementation of sanctions against Iran that we are seeing around the world."

On June 23, the United States imposed sanctions on Tidewater Middle East Company, an operator of Iranian ports owned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that has links to Iranian proliferation activities and against Iran Air, which was designated for providing material support and services to the IRGC and Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL), and also has facilitated proliferation-related activities.

These sanctions also exposed an Iranian individual and entity for their ties to a company that allegedly provided support and weapons to Hizballah on behalf of the IRGC.

Late May, EU foreign ministers agreed at a meeting in Brussels to add more than 100 new entities to a list of companies and people affected by EU sanctions, designed to put economic pressure on Tehran to abandon its atomic programme.

The measures, asset freezes and visa bans, add to a range of financial and trade sanctions the EU's 27 governments have already imposed on Tehran.

According to the U.S. officials, the IRGC’s illicit activities and its increasing displacement of the legitimate Iranian private sector in major strategic industries, including in the commercial and energy sectors, are deeply troubling.

"The IRGC also serves as the domestic "enforcer" for the Iranian regime, continues to play an important proliferation role by orchestrating the import and export of prohibited items to and from Iran, is involved in support of terrorism throughout the region, and is responsible for serious human rights abuses against peaceful Iranian protestors and other opposition participants," Clinton and Geithner said told.

They underlined the steps U.S. have taken this week seek to limit Iran’s ability to use the global financial system to pursue illicit activities.

"We have made important progress in isolating Iran, but we cannot waver. Our efforts must be unrelenting to sharpen the choice for Iran’s leaders to abandon their dangerous course," the officials told.

According to the statement, the United States are committed to a dual-track policy of applying pressure in pursuit of constructive engagement.

"The United States and our partners remain fully committed to a diplomatic solution with Iran. However, until Iran is prepared to engage seriously with us on such a solution, we will continue to increase pressure against Iranian entities of concern."

The Iranian nuclear program has been of international concern since the discovery in 2003 that Iran had concealed its nuclear activities for 18 years in breach of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran has repeatedly stated that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes of providing energy, but many other countries contend that it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons and last June the Security Council imposed a fourth round of sanctions against it, citing the proliferation risks of its nuclear programme and its continued failure to cooperate with the IAEA.

Resolutions adopted last summer by the UN Security Council, as well as additional unilateral sanctions approved by the U.S. Congress and the foreign ministers of all EU countries, were primarily directed against the banking, financial and energy sectors of Iran.

Restrictions imposed by the EU include the ban on the sale of equipment, technologies and services to Iran's energy sector; the same measure refers to the refining industry. New investments in Iran's energy sector have also been also prohibited as a whole.


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