US Treasury imposes new sanctions on Iran

The US Treasury on Wednesday announced new sanctions on Iran to curb its nuclear program, including blacklisting a state-controlled bank, companies the United States says are fronts for the Iranian state shipping line, and the air force and missile commands of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.The actions are the first set of US measures to implement the latest round of United Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran approved last week. They prohibit US transactions with the blacklisted entities and seek to freeze any assets they may have under US jurisdiction. US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told a news briefing at the White House that more actions to increase financial pressure on Iran would be taken in coming weeks. We are adding to our list of sanctioned entities a number of institutions and individuals who are helping Iran to fund nuclear and missile programs and to evade international sanctions. Our sanctions today are designed to deter other governments and foreign financial institutions from dealing with these entities and thereby supporting Iran's illicit activities, Geithner said. He also said that he expects more actions from other governments soon to put economic pressure on Iran to curb its nuclear program. This is not something the United States can do alone. We need other countries to move with us. So alongside our efforts in the UN to build international support for sanctions, we've been working behind the scenes building support among finance ministries for additional actions to prevent abuse of the global financial systems of Iran. We expect to see additional actions announced by other governments soon. The new US Treasury sanctions also take further aim at the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps, blacklisting its air force and missile commands over their activities in the development of ballistic missiles. It had previously sanctioned Revolutionary Guard entities over Iran's nuclear and missile programs.