{"id":42,"date":"2019-03-27T17:56:06","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T17:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zalaand.af\/EN\/?p=42"},"modified":"2019-03-27T17:56:06","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T17:56:06","slug":"us-sanctions-firms-over-links-with-irans-revolutionary-guards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/?p=42","title":{"rendered":"US Sanctions Firms Over Links With Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States on Tuesday imposed fresh sanctions on a network of companies and people in Iran, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates it said was helping to raise billions of dollars to fund the operations of Iran\u2019s elite Revolutionary Guards.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The US Treasury blacklisted 25 people and organizations, including a clutch of front companies based in the three countries, that were working on behalf of Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Iran\u2019s defense ministry to raise money for their activities.<\/p>\n

The targeted institutions include banks and other financial institutions such as Ansar Bank, Atlas Exchange, Iranian Atlas Company, the US Treasury said in a statement.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe are exposing an extensive sanctions evasion network that was established by the Iranian regime to evade American sanctions,\u201d Brian Hook, the US special envoy for Iran, told reporters. \u201cWith this action today we are increasing our pressure even further on the Iranian regime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hook described Ansar as \u201cthe banker\u201d of the Revolutionary Guards and its overseas operations run by Quds Force. He said the bank paid the salaries of IRGC-Quds Force employees and Iranian foreign fighters in Syria.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey created front companies to access the US financial system on their own,\u201d said Hook, adding that Tehran was feeling the pressure from US sanctions and created the network to look for a way around the restrictions.<\/p>\n

He said the Ansar front companies had raised $800 million over the last year and a half to buy military vehicles and to fund the IRGC\u2019s and Quds Force operations.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Hook said the United States was sanctioning Iran\u2019s defense ministry \u201cfor its support for terrorism\u201d and providing logistics support to the Revolutionary Guards.<\/p>\n

A U.S. official said the sanctions were not related to the US State Department\u2019s labeling of groups as so-called foreign terrorist organizations, known as FTOs. The defense ministry was blacklisted in 2007 for its role in weapons of mass destruction proliferation, Hook added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are now expanding our authorities against Iran\u2019s ministry of defense for its support for terrorism,\u201d Hook told reporters at the State Department.<\/p>\n

The sanctions are part of a campaign by Washington to pressure Tehran to negotiate a comprehensive plan to end its nuclear and missile programs.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump withdrew last year from a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers. Since abandoning the agreement, the United States has imposed a string of new sanctions aimed at choking off Iran\u2019s funding, especially from oil.<\/p>\n

The IRGC is by far Iran\u2019s most powerful security organization and has control over large stakes of the Iranian economy and huge influence in its political system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United States on Tuesday imposed fresh sanctions on a network of companies and people in Iran, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates it said was helping to raise billions of dollars to fund the operations of Iran\u2019s elite Revolutionary Guards. The US Treasury blacklisted 25 people and organizations, including a clutch of front companies …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":44,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2780],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ehsasnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/55661556_2297940223560903_3842719381603745792_n-1-750x422.png?fit=750%2C422&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbbJo6-G","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ehsasnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}