By Reuters
Copyright dawn
The United States has issued a fresh round Iran-related sanctions targeting individuals and entities that Washington says finance Tehran’s military, including some in Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates, the US Treasury Department said on Tuesday.
Those targeted have helped coordinate funds transfers, including from the sale of Iranian oil, that benefit Iran’s military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC)- Quds Force and its Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL), the Treasury said.
“Iranian ‘shadow banking’ networks like these — run by trusted illicit financial facilitators — abuse the international financial system, and evade sanctions by laundering money through overseas front companies and cryptocurrency,” it said in a statement.
US sanctions generally prohibit American individuals and companies from engaging in any business transactions with those targeted.
The US had issued Iran-related sanctions in June this year as well, taking aim at the procurement of machinery for the country’s defense industry.
The US Treasury Department had said back then that it was targeting an individual and eight entities over their roles in the sourcing and transshipment of “sensitive machinery for Iran’s defense industry”.
Iran said earlier this month that the path to nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States is not closed but US demands for curbs on Iranian ballistic and hypersonic missiles are obstructing prospects for talks.
A sixth round of Iran-US talks was suspended after Israel and the US struck Iranian military and nuc-lear facilities and Iran ret-aliated with waves of ballistic and hypersonic missiles against Israel.
