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West considering additional sanctions against Tehran

Britain, France, Germany and the US were considering imposing additional sanctions on Iran over its nuclear work, possibly in the energy, reinsurance or financial sectors, a senior British official said on Friday.

These would be beyond measures already taken by the UN Security Council and beyond steps likely to be considered in a possible next round of UN sanctions, the official said, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity.

“We are at a fairly early stage of this but ... there are areas of the Iranian economy that are vulnerable to targeted sanctions — whether they be in the LNG [liquefied natural gas] sector, investment in the oil and gas sector, imported refined products, reinsurance, other financial areas — which are areas we would look at if we are looking to increase the pressure on the Iranian leadership,” the official said.

He said the countries discussing imposing additional sanctions were Britain, France, the US and Germany, and primarily the first three of those countries.

There were “a number of other countries that we would want to involve in those discussions as we go forward,” he said, without naming them.

The UN Security Council has previously passed three sanctions resolutions against Iran.

Middle East experts say talks on a new sanctions resolution would be lengthy as veto-wielding council members Russia and China seek to balance their growing frustration with Iran with major commercial interests in the world’s fourth-biggest oil producer.

Iran’s oil and gas industries are seen as off-limits for UN sanctions.

Meanwhile, the Iranian government ordered the state oil company to deposit oil revenues only in selected banks in a bid to dodge toughening sanctions over its nuclear drive, Iranian media reported yesterday.

The state-run National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) had been free to choose where to deposit the tens of billions of dollars Iran receives annually in earnings from its crude oil exports.

But a new government directive said the NIOC could now deposit the foreign currency only in foreign banks previously selected by the central bank.

“NIOC is from now on obliged to deposit 100 percent of crude oil export income in foreign bank accounts that are chosen by the Central Bank of Iran,” state television quoted the new government directive as saying.

The order did not say on which criteria the foreign banks would be selected.

But EU governments have pressured European financial institutions to cut their business with Iran as a way of pressuring the Islamic republic in the standoff over its controversial nuclear program.

The West also wants Asian banks to loosen their traditionally close ties with Iran.

“This decision was made after the expansion of new rounds of sanctions against Iran so that Iran’s assets are not blocked in foreign banks,” the Sarmayeh newspaper quoted a source in oil ministry as saying.

“Many foreign banks … and even some Chinese banks have cut their financial operations with Iran and these [restrictions] increase day by day,” the source said.

Thanks to record oil prices, Iran pocketed US$29.5 billion in the first four months of the current calendar year that began on March 20.
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