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All tagged OFAC
A new report from the Majlis Research Center offers the first assessment of what “verified” sanctions relief might look like, providing a glimpse into how negotiators will take forward a key demand set out by Iran’s Supreme Leader.
While a considerable number of Iranian heritage professionals are still working on international collaborations, the shifting winds of both global and Iranian domestic politics have made archaeological fieldwork in Iran a complicated and risky endeavor.
INSTEX alone cannot save the JCPOA, the future of which essentially depends on US-Iranian relations. INSTEX can nevertheless help maintain the nuclear agreement until, or even after, diplomatic solutions are found.
A Swiss payment channel touted by the Trump administration as a solution to ease humanitarian trade with Iran under sanctions has so-far failed to process any transactions during Iran’s COVID-19 outbreak.
For the first time, the Treasury Department has issued a letter of comfort to a foreign financial institution conducting sanctions exempt trade with Iran. This move, made in accordance with the launch of a new Swiss channel for humanitarian trade with Iran, could introduce a new tool for U.S. authorities which have struggled to provide credible sanctions relief.
The Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 tragedy presents the Trump administration an opportunity to demonstrate its often-stated goodwill toward the Iranian people by responding to the formal invitation from Iran and enabling the participation of US experts from Boeing and investigative body NTSB.
◢ The Treasury Department has announced that it will operationalize a financial channel to facilitate humanitarian trade with Iran, after privately acknowledging to European officials that recent sanctions imposed on the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) risked encumbering trade in food and medicine. But the new channel may cause more problems than it solves.
◢ The Trump administration has imposed successive rounds of economic sanctions targeting nearly all productive sectors of Iran’s economy. But a new wave of restrictive measures now under consideration would have the practical effect of totally severing Iran’s economy from Europe, critically undermining humanitarian trade with Iran.
◢ The Trump administration announced the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)—a branch of Iran’s armed forces—as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) pursuant to section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). While the practical effect of the FTO designation is negligible at best, the risks to the US from the designation could be severe.
◢ In order improve preparedness for frequent earthquakes, floods, sandstorms, and heat-waves, Iran urgently needs to upgrade its surveying and monitoring technologies to better model and predict meteorological, hydrological, and geological events. The United States should create a new general license to remove the sanctions-related barriers to Iran’s acquisition of these much needed technologies.
◢ In an exclusive interview with Bourse & Bazaar, CEO of Iran’s Parsian Bank, which was sanctioned last week by the US Treasury, has described the designation of the bank as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) a “mistake.” The move against one of Iran’s leading private sector banks by has many in Iran’s banking sector worried about the ongoing viability of humanitarian trade.
◢ With just two weeks until Trump reimposes secondary sanctions on Iran, administration officials are under increasing pressure to prove that the returning sanctions will not adversely impact humanitarian trade. Looking to US Census Bureau export data, a clear pattern emerges—the export of humanitarian goods like food and medicine remains significantly lower than average monthly values registered during the Obama years.
◢ With US sanctions on Iran’s banking sector due to come into effect soon, European countries are now considering measures that would facilitate trade transactions with Iran through a new legal and institutional structure. European governments have been reviewing this legal entity, known as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), for months. The timing of this public announcement suggests that they have a degree of confidence that the SPV can become operational, and that Europe can use the model to showcase its ability to deliver on its commitments.
◢ The second and final sanctions deadline of November 4 is drawing near. After this date, unilateral US sanctions on Iran’s financial sector will once again come into force. According to Iranian bankers and government officials, this could mean that Iran struggles to import humanitarian goods, including basic foodstuffs, despite longstanding exemptions for trade in these goods.
◢ A crisis is looming in Iran’s healthcare sector: patients are reporting shortages in life-saving medicine. The situation is expected to worsen once US sanctions on Iran are reimposed in November. European and US companies that can provide the advanced medicine and equipment needed to treat chronic diseases inside Iran are grappling with how to sustain their operations. New US sanctions will put the health of ordinary Iranians at risk. Europe can take concrete steps to minimize this—steps which also support its ongoing commitment to the nuclear deal.
◢ In a recent speech, Under Secretary of the Treasury Sigal Mandelker warned that foreign companies that maintain a presence in Iran must conduct “extra due diligence to keep them from being caught in Iran’s deceptive web.” But background conversations with several compliance specialists reveal that US sanctions are a major barrier to key AML/CTF reforms in Iran. Industry-standard compliance software is not accessible for Iranian end users, leaving some experts to conclude that Iran is being “set up to fail.”
◢ The US Treasury Office of Foreign Asset Control on Thursday announced a new round of targeted sanctions designations, including sanctions on Dena Airways, the company which operates the Iran’s presidential aircraft used by Hassan Rouhani for official travel. The new sanctions follow the designation of Iran’s central bank governor, Valliollah Seif, and reflect a further targeting of the Rouhani administration.
◢ In the years when Iran was under broad international sanctions, the country saw shortages in key foodstuffs and life-saving medicines. Despite attestations to the contrary, international sanctions hurt the Iranian people in cruel ways. As Iranians prepare for the return of U.S. sanctions, concerning ambiguity in OFAC’s new sanctions guidance may undermine the longstanding exemptions for humanitarian trade and the carve-outs for the Iranian banks which facilitate these sales.
◢ On 8 May 2018, U.S. President Trump announced that the United States “will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal” and that the United States “will be instituting the highest level of economic sanctions”. At the same time, U.S. authorities announced that U.S. sanctions would be re-instated, at the latest by 4 November 2018. What does this mean for companies who have ties to Iran or who do business in Iran?
◢ Despite recent uncertainty surrounding the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran Air has been moving forward with its expansion efforts, drastically changing its face in the airline industry.
◢ Iran Air's network has grown significantly since 2015, but remains much smaller than that of a decade ago. In 2002, the airline was serving 18 European destinations, compared to today’s 13 destinations.
