ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Washington announced fresh sanctions targeting Iran’s oil sector on Monday, just one week before the US Presidential election.
The US Treasury Department announced sanctions against Iran’s Petroleum Ministry, Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh, the National Iranian Oil Company and the National Iranian Tanker Company for financial support to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, whose leader Qasem Soleimani was killed in a US airstrike in January of this year.
Several front companies and oil executives have also been named in the new measures.
The Quds Force has entrenched Iranian influence in countries across the Middle East, and has supported the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad in the ongoing civil war.
“In spring 2019 alone, an IRGC-QF-led network employed more than a dozen NITC vessels to transport nearly 10 million barrels of crude oil, mostly destined for the Assad regime. Iran continues to perpetuate the Syrian conflict with these kinds of transactions,” said the Treasury Department.
“The regime in Iran uses the petroleum sector to fund the destabilizing activities of the IRGC-QF,” said Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. “The Iranian regime continues to prioritize its support for terrorist entities and its nuclear program over the needs of the Iranian people.”
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also commented on the “counterterrorism” sanctions.
“The Iranian regime pawns its oil to fund the destabilizing misadventures of the IRGC rather than improving conditions for its people,” he tweeted on Monday.
“Sanctioning me and my colleagues is a passive reaction to the failure of the policy of Washington to bring down oil exports to zero,” Zanganeh said in reaction to the news.
“The era of unilateralism is over in the world. The oil industry of Iran will not be defeated. I have no assets abroad to be sanctioned. I sacrifice my life, my assets and my honor for Iran.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has hit out at the new measures, calling the US a “sanction addict.”
“Kick the habit. More economic warfare against Iran will bring the US less – and not more- influence,” he tweeted.
The new sanctions also target four individuals for oil sales to the “illegimate Maduro regime” in Venezuela.
A senior State Department official also threatened Monday that Washington will destroy Iranian long-range missiles sent to the country.
"The transfer of long-range missiles from Iran to Venezuela is not acceptable to the United States and will not be tolerated or permitted," Elliott Abrams, the State Department Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela told Fox News.
"We will make every effort to stop shipments of long-range missiles, and if somehow they get to Venezuela they will be eliminated there," he added.
