US hits Iran's financial sector with fresh round of sanctions

Iranians counting and exchanging the United States 100-dollar bills and Iran’s Rial banknotes, on 12 January 2012 [ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images]

The United States on Thursday slapped fresh sanctions on Iran’s financial sector, targeting 18 Iranian banks in an effort to further shut Iran out of the global banking system as Washington ramps up pressure on Tehran weeks ahead of the US election, Reuters reports.

In an announcement posted on its website, the US Treasury Department also identified the financial sector of the Iranian economy pursuant to Executive Order 13902, though it said the prohibitions did not apply to transactions for the provision of agricultural commodities, food, medicine or medical devices to Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif accused the United States of targeting Iran’s “remaining channels to pay for food and medicine” in the midst of a pandemic through new sanctions announced on Thursday.

“Amid Covid 19 pandemic, U.S. regime wants to blow up our remaining channels to pay for food & medicine,” Zarif said on Twitter. “But conspiring to starve a population is a crime against humanity.”

READ: Iran’s Rouhani warns against transfer of Syria fighters to Azerbaijan

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.