US envoy says new Iran sanctions are coming

US Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, testifies during a Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing on US Policy in the Middle East on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on September 24, 2020. (AFP photo)

US Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela Elliott Abrams has said that the United States will impose new sanctions on a number of Iranian officials and entities.

"The US is committed to holding accountable those who deny freedom and justice to people of Iran and later today United States will announce sanctions on several Iranian officials and entities including the judge who sentenced Navid Afkari to death," Abrams said during a hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday.

Twenty-seven-year-old Afkari was executed on September 12 after being convicted of stabbing to death a government employee in the southern Fars province in 2018.

Afkari was executed “after legal procedures were carried out at the insistence of the parents and the family of the victim,” the head of the Justice Department in Fars was quoted as saying by state media.

He had stabbed Hassan Turkman, a water supply company employee, in the southern city of Shiraz during riots over fuel prices in 2018.

The United States has falsely claimed that the death sentence arose from his involvement in street protests of 2018. Iran has strongly rejected these assertions.

Earlier this week, the United States imposed new unilateral sanctions against Iran after it failed to garner support for its anti-Iran move at the United Nations.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the sanctions on Monday, a day after Washington unilaterally declared that all UN sanctions against Tehran were re-instated.

Pompeo said the new sanctions target Iran’s Defense Ministry and the country’s Atomic Energy Organization.

He also said that President Trump has issued an executive order "that is a new and powerful tool to enforce the UN arms embargo."

Later on Monday, President Donald Trump said that he was imposing sanctions on Iranians demanded enforcement by US allies, who have roundly rejected his demand.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, appearing with Pompeo, also announced separate sanctions on the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.

The new sanctions came just a day after Washington unilaterally declared that all UN sanctions against Iran were re-instated under a mechanism within the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Pompeo has that all UN sanctions against Iran were "back in effect" under the “snapback” provision in the JCPOA.

The claim came 30 days after Pompeo notified the UN Security Council of what he called Iran’s “significant non-performance” with its obligations under the JCPOA – from which Trump withdrew in May 2018.

Iran has been under a series of economic sanctions imposed by the United States since 2018, when President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Iran deal.

The Trump administration has unleashed its “toughest ever” sanctions to bring Iran's economy to its knees, but it keeps humming and is getting back on its feet.

For the first time in ten months, earlier this month a US aircraft carrier sailed through the Strait of Hormuz and entered into the waters of the Persian Gulf, after Washington threatened to illegally extend an expiring arms embargo on Iran.

The Nimitz strike group includes the USS Princeton and USS Philippine Sea, both guided-missile cruisers, and the guided-missile destroyer USS Sterett.


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