The United States on Tuesday imposed economic sanctions targeting 35 ships in the “ghost fleet” allowing Iran to export its oil to foreign markets by circumventing Western restrictions, the US Treasury Department announced.
“Oil revenues provide the Iranian regime with the resources necessary to finance its nuclear program, develop advanced drones and missiles, and provide ongoing financial and material support for the terrorist activities of its regional proxies,” the Treasury said in a statement.
On October 11, Washington imposed a series of sanctions targeting the Iranian petrochemical industry in “response to the October 1 attack on Israel, the second direct attack this year.” These sanctions targeted the entire sector, but also around twenty ships as well as companies based abroad.
“Iran continues to channel revenues from its oil trade into the development of its nuclear program, the proliferation of its ballistic missile and drone technology, and the sponsorship of its regional terrorist proxies, thereby risking further destabilization of region,” Bradley Smith, Acting Under Secretary of State for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, was quoted as saying in the statement.
“The United States remains committed to disrupting the clandestine fleet of vessels and operators that facilitate these illicit activities, using the full range of our tools and powers,” he said.
The sanctions result in the freezing of assets held directly or indirectly by the targeted companies in the United States as well as the ban on companies based in the United States, or American citizens, from trading with these sanctions targets, at the risk of be sanctioned in turn.
They also, in fact, complicate the commercial exchanges of companies under sanction, by limiting their possibility of using the dollar in their transactions, at the risk of falling under American jurisdiction.
With AFP
