Ahead of the economic sanctions on Iran set to be imposed on November 5, United States President Donald Trump on Friday tweeted a "Game of Thrones"- image of himself with the words "sanctions are coming".
Earlier, the White House confirmed the re-imposition of toughest sanctions on Iran, which were lifted by former president Barack Obama under the 2015 nuclear deal. Washington declared the sanctions on Tehran's shipping, financial and energy sectors. The sanctions are targetting the crude oil exports of the country.
The Iran nuclear deal was signed between six countries in 2015 - Iran, US, Britain, Germany, Russia, France and China for lifting economic sanctions on Tehran in exchange for limitations to the country's nuclear programme. Trump, however, walked out of the deal and reinstated sanctions citing Iran's support to ill-governance and Middle-East uprisings in May.
The Trump administration will also penalise countries for importing oil and foreign companies that do business with certain Iranian entities.
Reflecting on the same, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo underscored that the "ultimate aim is to compel Iran to permanently abandon its well-documented outlaw activities and behave as a normal country."
"On November 5th, the US will reimpose sanctions that were lifted as part of the nuclear deal on Iran's energy, shipbuilding, shipping, and banking sectors. These sanctions will hit at the core areas of Iran's economy. They are necessary to spur changes we seek on the part of the regime. These economic sanctions are just a part of the US government's total effort to change the behaviour of Ayatollah Khomeini, Qasem Soleimani, and the Iranian regime," Pompeo told reporters in a teleconference.
He added that Washington has been working closely with other countries to cut off Iranian oil exports as much as possible. "We expect to issue some temporary allotments to eight jurisdictions, but only because they have demonstrated significant reductions in their crude oil and cooperation on many other fronts and have made important moves towards getting to zero crude oil importation. These negotiations are still ongoing. Two of the jurisdictions will completely end imports as part of their agreements. The other six will import at greatly reduced levels, Pompeo elaborated, without naming the eight countries, who are expected to get waivers to buy Iranian oil.
Pompeo asserted that the sanctions were "aimed at depriving the Iranian regime of the revenues that it uses to spread death and destruction around the world."
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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who also participated in the conference call with Pompeo, said that his department has been committed to putting a stop to Iran's destabilising activities across the world.
"We've engaged a massive economic pressure campaign against Iran, which remains the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism. To date, we have issued 19 rounds of sanctions on Iran, designating 168 targets as part of our maximum pressure campaign. We have gone after the financial networks that the Iranian regime uses to fuel its terrorist proxies and Hizballah and Hamas, to fund the Houthis in Yemen, and to support the brutal Assad regime in Syria," Mnuchin said.
He elucidated, "The 180-day wind-down period ends at 11:59 pm Eastern Standard Time on Sunday, November 4th. As of Monday, November 5th, the final round of snapback sanctions will be enforced on Iran's energy, shipping, shipbuilding, and financial sectors. As part of this action on Monday, the Treasury Department will add more than 700 names to our list of blocked entities. Sanctions lifted under the terms of Iran's nuclear deal will be reimposed on individuals, entities, vessels, and aircraft that touch numerous segments of Iran's economy. This will include Iran's energy sector and financial sectors. We are sending a very clear message with our maximum pressure campaign that the US intends to aggressively enforce our sanctions. Any financial institution, company, or individual who evades our sanctions risks losing access to the U.S. financial system and the ability to do business with the United States or U.S. companies. We are intent on ensuring that global funds stop flowing to the coffers of the Iranian regime."
Pompeo said that the administration was confident that the sanctions on Iran will be "incredibly effective".
"We're counting on the Iranian people to have the opportunity and we are working towards allowing the Iranian people to have the opportunity to have the government they want, a government that doesn't take wealth from their country and spend it on malign activity around the world," he further said.
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