As Iran and the group of six world powers held talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan, members of the House of Representatives are preparing to introduce a bill on Wednesday which would give President Obama additional powers to impose economic penalties on countries that provide Iran with goods “critical to its economy.”
The legislation,
a copy of which was obtained by Reuters on Tuesday, is an extension on existing
U.S. sanctions against the Iranian nation over the country’s nuclear energy
program.
Under the
legislation, European authorities would be forced to prevent Iran from using the
European Central Bank’s payment system.
Moreover, on
Monday, one day before the latest round of talks between Iran and the P5+1
(Britain, China, France, Russia, and the U.S. plus Germany) began in Kazakhstan,
U.S. senators wrote a letter to European Council leaders to urge the European
Central Bank to deny Iran access to its Euro-denominated foreign exchange
reserves.
The measures
come less than a month after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said the U.S. is
ready to hold direct talks with Iran over its nuclear energy
program.
The Obama
administration has already put in place the toughest sanctions ever imposed on
the Islamic Republic, including new measures targeting, for the first time,
Iran’s entire financial system. The
U.S.-engineered sanctions have been imposed on the Iranian nation based on the
allegations that Iran’s nuclear energy program is a cover for military
purposes. Tehran
vehemently rejects the accusations as baseless and
politically-motivated. Iran says, as a
signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to use nuclear technology
for peaceful purposes. Iran has
cooperated with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) more than any
other country throughout the history of the agency.
ISH/HJ
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