US slaps sanctions on dual Iran-Iraq citizen and mining company

Trump administration keeps up pressure despite calls from world leaders to ease sanctions during coronavirus pandemic.

Iran coronavirus
Firefighters wear protective face masks as they disinfect streets in Iran, where the economy continues to be targeted by US sanctions despite appeals by the United Nations and others for Washington to suspend sanctions during the coronavirus pandemic [File: WANA/Ali Khara via Reuters]

The United States has kept up its maximum pressure campaign against Iran, unleashing a fresh round of sanctions – this time targeting a dual citizen of Iran and Iraq and his mining company.

Amir Dianat and Taif Mining Services LLC, a company the US Treasury says is owned, controlled, or directed by Dianat, are the latest entities to be placed on the Trump administration’s blacklist on Friday.

In its statement, the US Treasury accused Dianat of being “a longtime associate of senior officials” with Iran’s Quds Force and being involved in efforts to help it “to generate revenue” and smuggling weapons from Iran to Yemen. Taif Mining is accused of being a front company for the Quds Force.

The sanctions freeze any US-held assets of Dianat or his firm. The Treasury also said the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia has filed criminal charges against him and one of his business associates for violations of sanctions and money laundering laws, as well as a related action “alleging that approximately $12m is subject to forfeiture as funds involved in these crimes and as assets of a foreign terrorist organization”.

The announcement is the latest indication that Washington is not easing its campaign to cripple Iran’s economy, despite appeals from United Nations officials and others to do so on humanitarian grounds as the country battles the coronavirus outbreak.

Iran has been hit hard by the virus with the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country surpassing 95,000 and the number of deaths exceeding 6,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Tehran asked the International Monetary Fund for $5bn in emergency funding to fight the outbreak, but the international lender has not followed through on the request.

“The Iranian government and its supporters continue to prioritise the funding of international terrorist organisations over the health and wellbeing of the Iranian people,” US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in the statement. 

The US “maximum pressure” campaign of successive rounds of sanctions kicked off in 2018 after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal Iran struck with major world powers. Washington is trying to force Tehran back to the negotiation table by squeezing it economically.

Source: Al Jazeera