Tag Archives: Sanctions

Russia’s energy hegemony

Recently, NATO officials announced that Russian tanks and armored vehicles have charged into the southern Ukraine, which is held by Russian rebels.

For most people, the announcement of Russia’s recent invasion is not a surprise but merely an escalation of what has been building up for months. Suspicions were aroused, after Russia attempted to send a humanitarian aid convoy into the war torn area without Kiev’s permission. Moreover, Russia has announced a second “humanitarian aid” convoy will be sent in next week.

Since the beginning of the year, pro-Russian militias have gradually taken control of the Crimea peninsula in Ukraine. Initially, Russian President Vladimir Putin disavowed any direct involvement with these militias groups only to later acknowledge that Russian Special Forces have played a role in assisting the militias groups.

Following a referendum that called for Crimea’s unification with Russia, Putin took steps to annex the region. Though the majority the international community considers the referendum invalid and Russia’s annexation illegal, Russia continues to exert its influence in the region.

Not only has Russia shown a strong interest in absorbing Crimea, it makes very overt statements regarding further territorial ambitions throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Ukraine is not the first former Soviet country that Russia has invaded. In 2008, Russian troops invaded the country of Georgia, where Russian troops remain to this day.

It has come to be that people stop asking if Russia will overrun another country and now spend their time questioning which country they will invade. Additionally, will the next country on Putin’s list, incur a military incursion by Russia and/or their puppet militia’s? Or will they be coerced in some other fashion into give up their sovereignty?

Energy security is a large and growing source of concern for many European lawmakers; especially those in Central and Eastern European countries which are heavily dependent on Russia for over 70% of their total gas consumption.

Currently, the Italian company Enel, which owns Slovenske Elektrarne that provides 77 percent of Slovakia’s power, is in the market to sell its majority stake in the Slovakian energy producer. From the looks of it, the Russian state-owned energy company Rosatom is a serious candidate for a majority stake in power supplier.

While some reports have announced that Enel will not sell to Russian companies due to the Ukraine crisis, other reports deny Rosatom’s exclusion from consideration. Purchase of Slovenske Elektrarne would further monopolize Russia’s control of European energy.

Through the routine exploitation of its position as the region’s primary energy exporter, Russia has been belligerently expanding their power and territory in the region. With so much control over the Europes energy supply, Russia will no longer need to dominate other countries militarily; it can simply turn off people’s lights. In fact, Russia has used this technique in the past. In 2009, the Russian gas company Gazprom halted natural gas exports to Europe, leading to shortages throughout the continent.

Energy exports compose approximately one-eighth of Russia’s total exports. Past sanctions have not had a wide impact on the energy industry. By imposing additional sanctions that target the Russian energy industry, would send a strong signal from the U.S. and other NATO countries that Russia should discontinue its territorial expansion.

Additionally, the French bank BNP Paribas, which was appointed to advise on the sale of the utility, has received heavy fines in the past for violating U.S. sanctions when the bank failed to cancel a Russian deal to purchase two Mistral-class naval ships from France. New sanctions would be a clear signal to BNP Paribas that it should not consider Rosatom as a potential purchaser of Slovenske Elektrarne.

While initial sanctions placed on Russia hasn’t stopped it from incurring in Ukraine, the potential cost to the Bank from future sanction violations will weigh heavily on any decisions they make regarding Slovenske Elektrarne’s sale. This in turn will help keep the lights on throughout Central European countries worried about their sovereignty.

The Venezuelan Sanctions Bill Awaits Senate Action

t has been two months since the House of Representatives version of the Venezuela sanctions bill was passed.  Avery similar bill titled  the ‘‘Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014” now awaits passage in the Senate, after having been voted out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The bill itself is limited in scope but would have a significant impact in Venezuela, especially on those individuals responsible for the brutal crackdown on peaceful protestors that took place last February. It imposes “targeted sanctions on persons responsible for violations of human rights of antigovernment protesters in Venezuela, to strengthen civil society in Venezuela and for other purposes”.’, calls  “to support the people of Venezuela in their aspiration to live under conditions of peace”; “to work in concert with the other member states within the Organization of American States, as well as the countries of the European Union, to ensure the peaceful resolution of the current situation in Venezuela”; and “to hold accountable government and security officials in Venezuela responsible for or complicit in the use of force in relation to the antigovernment protests that began on February 12, 2014, and similar future acts of violence”; and” to continue to support the development of democratic political processes and independent civil society in Venezuela”.

One might ask why these sanctions are necessary and what impact they would really have on the situation in Venezuela.. The Venezuela of today is a place where citizens often live in fear and are under a cloud of intimidation. Freedom of the press has been severely curtailed. The courts are now controlled by the absolute power of the President. Attacks on unions, demonization of political dissidents, arbitrary disqualification of political candidates, and a general atmosphere of intolerance prevail.

Venezuela has experienced an extreme climate of violence. The government has promoted an atmosphere of fear and intimidation by strengthening armed paramilitaries that carry out systematic repression and also criminal acts that have already placed Venezuela among the countries with the highest rates of violence in the world.

Additionally, Venezuela has prisoners who are being held without due process and has sent many people into exile. There is no democratic nation in the world that maintains such a negative record.

The situation continues to become ever more serious. The ruling party justifies its brutal repression of those who legitimately express their discontent by attributing the protests to external forces or non-existent conspiracies while the Venezuelan president amasses ever greater power.

Although some have argued that the human rights situation in Venezuela should be resolved through the electoral process rather than with the introduction of sanctions, it is the rampant abuse within the Venezuelan electoral system that helped prompt the protests in the first place.

In addition, there is no electoral exit  in Venezuela and this is one of the reasons why protests took place. First the population is intimidated and afraid. Therefore, many people vote thinking that somebody may find out whom they voted for. State employees, particularly from the oil giant PDVSA have been intimidated into voting for the ruling party. Furthermore, when the opposition won very often their work was obstructed. Such is the case of the Mayor of Caracas Antonio Ledezma who after taking office, the Central government created a de-facto parallel Caracas City Hall.

Up until July 29th, Senator Corker opposed the sanctions bill on the grounds that it was not part of a larger strategy. He was asking at the time for the Administration to define a strategy and explain how sanctions could advance that strategy.

Corker’s rationale for having questioned the value of sanctions at the time seems to have been  based on the notion that sanctions cannot work if they cannot achieve the desired results, insofar as  sanctions alone may prove to be insufficient and may also backfire by  encouraging the Maduro government to  increase the intensity of its repression.

Senator Corker was, indeed, right that the U.S. does not have a larger strategy to deal with Venezuela or for that matter with the challenges to democracy in the region or  the serious security threats Venezuela poses  to the United States.

Venezuela has indeed undertaken  dangerous policies that affect the entire hemisphere.

For example, Venezuela is heavily involved in the drug trade. The current flow of children and others to the United States from Central American countries is also the result of a state of anarchy caused by the drug trafficking that weakens state authority and makes the lives of people increasingly unsafe. Venezuela is the only country in Latin America that willingly makes its ports and airports available to drug cartels and harbors their leadership and operatives.

Just last week  General Hugo Carvajal, who served as Venezuela’s chief of intelligence between 2004 and 2011 and reappointed by Nicolas Maduro for a brief period last year, was arrested in Aruba at the request of the U.S. for his involvement in drug trafficking. Carvajal was allegedly in charge of collecting drug shipments from the Colombian narco-terrorist organization known as the FARC (Revolutioinary Armed Forces of Colombia). Carvajal allegedly controlled the entire distribution of drugs to the U.S. and Europe and was in charge of laundering   drug money through the Venezuelan oil giant, PDVSA. Unfortunately, under threats from the Venezuelan government, Aruba sent Carvajal back to Venezuela instead of responding to the U.S. request to have him placed in American custody.

Venezuela has also established connections with terrorist groups such as the FARC, ETA, and Hezbollah. It has established dangerous alliances with Iran that allegedly include supplies of uranium to the Islamic Republic. Additionally, two sources have reported the presence of Iranian missiles in the Paraguana Peninsula; something that puts the U.S. in a situation of vulnerability as failure of U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations or an Israeli military attack on the latter’s nuclear facilities could precipitate greater antagonism between the United States and Iran. Venezuela also cooperates with Hezbollah on money transfers, on training of terrorists, and on provision of passports to Middle Eastern individuals.

Despite Senator Corker’s legitimate concerns that sanctions may not have the desired impact, they present an opportunity to raise awareness in our political establishment and develop a larger strategy. In addition, the sanctions bill could be the impetus the Obama Administration needs to more actively and constructively engage in the protection and promotion of democracy in the region. But the idea that we can’t do anything because we can’t do everything cannot be the rationale through which we address these serious issues.

If we oppose sanctions we will encourage the Maduro Government to further increase its repression and we would be letting down those who look up to  the United States as a source of hope in a world increasingly influenced by authoritarianism. It is now up to the full Senate to pass this much needed legislation.

José Cárdenas: Venezuela — Latest Developments and the Case for Sanctions

José Cárdenas, Former Acting Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, U.S. Agency for International Development; Former Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs speaks at the Center for Security Policy’s National Security Group Lunch on Capitol Hill regarding the latest developments in Venezuela, and the case for sanctions.

How to respond to EU sanctions

This week the EU took three steps that together prove Europe’s ill-intentions toward the Jewish state.

First, last Friday the EU announced it is imposing economic sanctions on Israel. The sanctions deny EU funds to Israeli entities with an address beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines. They also deny EU funds to Israeli entities countrywide that carry out activities beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines.

The areas beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines delineated by the EU directive include the Gaza Strip, which Israel abandoned eight years ago; the Golan Heights, which has been under Israeli sovereignty since 1981; eastern, northern and southern Jerusalem, which have been under Israeli sovereignty since 1967; and Judea and Samaria, over which Israel has shared governance with the PLO since 1994 in accordance with signed agreements witnessed by EU representatives.

The EU’s second action was the publication Tuesday of EU foreign policy commissioner Catherine Ashton’s letter to her fellow commissioners informing them that by the end of the year, the EU will publish binding requirements for specially labeling Israeli goods produced by Jews beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines exported to EU member states.

This act is potentially more damaging for Israel than the ban on transferring EU monies to Israeli entities with “bad” addresses. Labeling Israeli products is a means of signaling Europeans consumers that they should view all Israeli exports as morally inferior to other goods and wage a consumer boycott of Israeli products. Indeed, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius described the proposed labeling as an alternative to a broader boycott of all Israeli goods.

The EU’s third act was its decision to define Hezbollah’s “military wing” as a terrorist organization, but leave all the other Hezbollah-related institutions untouched. While the move has been applauded by Israeli politicians desperate to deny Europe’s animosity, Europe’s partial designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist entity is another act of aggression against Israel.

By pretending that Hezbollah has a legitimate “political wing” – a transparent lie that even Hezbollah has denied – the EU ensures that Hezbollah personnel and Hezbollah institutions can continue to find safe haven in Europe so long as the avoid attacking non-Jewish Europeans.

Hezbollah agents can continue raising money, planning attacks, and recruiting terrorists in Europe, as long as Hezbollah labels the activities “political.”

In other words, all Hezbollah operations directed against Israel and Jews will remain lawful in Europe.

Beyond exposing the EU’s fundamental and obsessive hostility toward the Jewish state, these three actions put paid to the EU’s protestations of allegiance to international law and commitment to bringing about peace between the Palestinians and Israel.

As ambassador Alan Baker, the former legal adviser to the Foreign Ministry, wrote in an article published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the EU’s actions against Israeli entities that operate beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines are unsupported by international law. The EU’s claim that Israel’s presence beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines is unlawful is not supported by any treaties or customs. Indeed, it is explicitly refuted by treaties and customs.

Israel’s legal rights to sovereignty over Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem are recognized under the law of nations through the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, which also called for “close Jewish settlement” of these areas. The Mandate’s allocation of sovereign rights over all of these areas to the Jewish people, and its recognition of the Jews as the indigenous people of the areas, has not been abrogated by any subsequent treaty. To the contrary, they were reinforced by Article 80 of the UN Charter.

Moreover, as Baker noted, the EU wrongly claims that Jewish communities beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines are illegal under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention from 1949. But authoritative interpretations of Article 49 make clear that Article 49 does not apply to such communities.

The lines the EU points to as Israel’s legal border were never borders and never legal. The 1949 Armistice Lines, which the EU falsely refers to as the 1967 borders, represent nothing more than the lines at which Israeli forces halted the invading armies of Arab states that illegally assaulted the nascent Jewish state at its birth on May 15, 1948.

The armistice agreements explicitly stated that the armistice lines lack all legal significance in terms of claims of parties to lands beyond the lines.

Finally, as Baker noted, the EU itself repeatedly supported UN resolutions and international agreements that recognize the legality of Israel’s continued control and civilian presence in the areas. As a consequence, its own actions contradict its claim that Israel’s presence and the presence of Israeli civilian communities beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines are illegal.

Beyond its unsubstantiated legal claims against Israel, both in its intention to label Israeli products and in its actions related to Hezbollah, the EU is acting in violation of international law. The EU’s intention to label Israeli products involves the imposition of trade barriers in contravention of the World Trade Organization’s legally binding rules.

By allowing Hezbollah to continue to operate in the EU, the EU is in violation of binding UN Security Council Resolution 1373 from 2001 that prohibits the use of member states’ territory for the benefit of terrorist groups.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni called the EU’s imposition of economic sanctions a “resounding wake-up call,” adding, “I hope that now all those who thought it is possible to continue with the freeze [in the peace talks with the PLO] will understand that we have to act to open negotiations, because this is the only way to protect Israel’s general interests.”

This view, which is the official view of the Left, is based on a complete denial of reality.

The EU announced its sanctions on the very same day US Secretary of State John Kerry announced he had convinced the PLO to return to peace talks with Israel. The confluence of these events could not demonstrate more clearly that the EU’s diplomatic onslaught against Israel has nothing to do with the conduct of negotiations with the PLO. If the EU’s chief interest was bringing Israel and the PLO to the negotiating table, Brussels would be sanctioning the Palestinians who have refused to negotiate with Israel since 2008.

By levying sanctions the EU does not seek to advance the cause of peace. It hopes to coerce Israel into abandoning its legitimate historic claims as the indigenous people of the Land of Israel to the lands allocated to the Jewish people under international law by the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. It hopes to coerce Israel into surrendering its right to defensible borders and voluntarily transform itself into an indefensible strategic basket case wholly dependent on the goodwill of outside powers for its survival.

The question is what can Israel do about it? Were Israel to fight fire with fire and levy counter sanctions on European goods it would be entering an economic war that it would lose and therefore has every interest in avoiding. But Israel’s inability to respond in kind to European aggression does not mean it is without options.

Europe is using economic sanctions to expand its political power over Israeli decision-makers. So Israel should act to diminish Europe’s political power in Israel.

The EU itself told Israel how to go about doing this in Paragraph 15 of the sanctions directive. It reads, “The requirements [banning the transfer of EU funds to Israeli entities operating beyond the 1949 armistice lines]… do not apply to activities which, although carried out in the territories…

aim at benefiting protected persons under the terms of international humanitarian law who live in these territories [i.e., the Palestinians] and/or at promoting the Middle East peace process in line with EU policy.”

In other words, Israeli NGOs that receive EU assistance are exempt from the financing ban if they commit to undermining Israel’s rights in the area. As the EU sees it, NGOs who receive EU money are EU agents, advancing European goals in the domestic Israeli arena, and as such should be exempted from the EU’s economic sanctions.

In a 2010 meeting with US diplomats leaked by WikiLeaks, Jessica Montell, the executive director of the Israeli-registered pro-Palestinian pressure group B’Tselem, effectively admitted that her organization would cease to exist without European funding.

According to the protocol of the meeting, Montell “estimated her NIS 9 million ($2.4 million) budget is 95 percent funded from abroad, mostly from European countries.”

To stem the momentum of Europe’s new economic war, Israel’s first response to the EU’s sanctions must be swift passage in the Knesset of a law requiring all Israeli entities that agree to operate under the EU’s funding guidelines to register as foreign agents and report all EU contributions.

Those contributions should be taxed at the highest corporate tax rate.

EU officials have stated repeatedly that they seek to undermine Israeli control over Area C. Area C is the area of Judea and Samaria where, in accordance with agreements signed between the PLO and Israel, Israel exercises most civil and military authorities. The EU is funding projects in Area C whose stated goal is to make it impossible over time for Israel to assert its authority over the area.

Israel’s second response to the EU’s announcement of economic sanctions on Israeli economic activity in Judea and Samaria should be to suspend all EU projects in Area C. Future EU projects should be subject to intense scrutiny by the civil administration. Israel’s default position should be to reject, rather than approve, such requests, given their hostile intent.

Finally, EU peacekeeping forces from Gaza to Lebanon to Syria have repeatedly proven not only their cowardice, but their willingness to act in ways that endanger Israel in order to protect themselves.

In Gaza, EU border guards fled to Israel following Hamas’s takeover of the area in 2007.

Along the border with Syria, Austrian peacekeepers fled at the first sign of trouble, leaving Israel to deal with Syrian breaches of the European-sanctioned 1974 disengagement agreement by itself.

European forces in UNIFIL in Lebanon have signed protection agreements with Hezbollah where in exchange for European forces’ turning a blind eye to Hezbollah’s illegal use of civilian infrastructures as military installations, Hezbollah has promised not to murder European forces.

Given this track record, Israel should bar European forces from further participation in armed forces in Israel. To this end, Israel should allow the mandate of the European-dominated Temporary International Presence in Hebron to expire when it next comes up for review. The TIPH, which has been deployed to the city since 1994, is composed of forces from Denmark, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey.

Israel has for years been operating under the misguided belief that the EU would eventually come around and side with Israel against its enemies.

This belief has been informed by equal doses of innocence and wishful thinking. The EU’s decision to initiate an economic war against the Jewish state forces Israel to abandon its long-held illusions.

Israel has options for responding forcefully to Europe’s aggression. If judiciously and firmly employed, these responses can diminish the Europeans’ interest in escalating this economic war, by denying them the political victory they seek.

Iran’s subverting EU sanctions

The European Union (EU) is running out of time to appeal a court ruling that will subvert sanctions they have placed on Iran.  The EU was given two months to appeal a decision made by the EU’s General Court in February that will lift sanctions on Bank Saderat of Iran.

The court’s ruling cited that the EU — which claimed that Bank Saderat was involved in Iran’s nuclear program — was “in breach of the obligation” to prove this claim.

The court’s ruling further rests on false claims that the Iranian government no longer owned the majority share of the bank, when in fact; the Iranian government is still the largest single shareholder of the bank through what some refer to as a privatization scam, specifically designed to undermine the international sanctions placed on Iran.

Iran won a similar ruling in January against EU sanctions towards Bank Mellat.  The court ruling is based on Iran’s manipulation of privatization laws; this will undermine sanctions placed there to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.  The deadline to appeal the court’s ruling is quickly approaching.  If it goes undisputed, Iran’s ability to fund its nuclear ambitions will only accelerate.

The Light Comes On and The Roaches Scramble: Companies Forced to Disclose Ties to Iran

As of February 6th of this year, all companies trading on US stock exchanges must file a report with the SEC detailing their business ties to Iran.

The results are flowing in and are nothing less than shocking.

NO ONE SHOULD BE DOING BUSINESS WITH THESE COMPANIES.

Among the offenders, some of whom have never previously been listed in any database tying them to Iran (indicating that they concealed their relations with Iran) are:

ExxonMobil

J.P. Morgan Chase

PepsiCo

CitiGroup

BP

Pfizer

Hyatt Hotels

JetBlue Airways

Neiman Marcus

Thomson Reuters

From the SEC web site:

Question: Section 219(b) of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012, signed into law on August 10, 2012, specifies that new Section 13(r) of the Exchange Act “shall take effect with respect to reports required to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission after the date that is 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act,” which would be February 6, 2013. If an issuer’s periodic report is required to be filed on a date after February 6, 2013 — such as, for example, the 2012 Form 10-K for calendar year filers — is the issuer required to disclose Iran-related business activities pursuant to Section 13(r) if it files the periodic report on or before February 6, 2013?

Answer: Yes. We interpret “reports required to be filed” to include any periodic report with a due date after February 6, 2013, regardless of when the report is actually filed.

Predictably, the lawyers are already whining about having to comply, complaining that Congress isn’t working closely enough with the Office of Foreign Assets Control and the SEC in coming up with this legislation. From the Wall Street Journal:

“There are requirements in the laws for SEC disclosures, but the unfortunate thing is Congress doesn’t appear to have consulted with [the Office of Foreign Assets Control] or the SEC before passing this legislation,” said Judith Lee, chairwoman of law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher’s international trade and regulation compliance practice group.

“Not only are the companies trying to figure out what is required, the agencies are too…For somebody like me who has worked in the sanctions area for many years, this is not the best way to go about passing legislation.”

There is no need to buy into this malarkey. What they are REALLY upset about is the fact that companies are having to admit the truth that they have been doing business in and with the world’s foremost sponsor of Jihadist terrorism. This is especially rich coming from Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, a law firm extensively involved in facilitating Shariah-Compliant Finance.

Perhaps the most serious disclosure is the fact that the news agency Thomson Reuters has done business directly with the Iranian government, which pretty much means you can’t trust a thing Reuters publishes about the Iranian threat.

More at the Free Beacon:

http://freebeacon.com/putting-iran-on-notice-2/

 

New York Times: Seized Chinese Weapons Raise Concerns on Iran

 

Chinese companies continue to do business with Iran. The available evidence indicates that the business includes selling sophisticated weaponry to the Iranians. In fact, in this latest case cited by the New York Times, it is a state-owned Chinese company’s sophisticated missiles that were headed from Iran to Jihadists, probably in Yemen…

An Iranian dhow seized off the Yemeni coast was carrying sophisticated Chinese antiaircraft missiles, a development that could signal an escalation of Iran’s support to its Middle Eastern proxies, alarming other countries in the region and renewing a diplomatic challenge to the United States.

Among the items aboard the dhow, according to a review of factory markings on weapons and their packing crates, were 10 Chinese heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles, most of them manufactured in 2005.

The missiles were labeled QW-1M and bore stencils suggesting that they had been assembled at a factory represented by the state-ownedChina National Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation, sanctioned by the United States for transfers of missile technology to Pakistan and Iran.

The Chinese missiles were part of a larger shipment interdicted by American and Yemeni forces in January, which American and Yemeni officials say was intended for the Houthi rebels in northwestern Yemen.

US Congress to Target European Central Bank to Stop Iran from Using Euros

U.S. lawmakers are crafting a bill designed to stop the European Central Bank from handling business from the Iranian government, a congressional aide said on Thursday, an attempt to keep Tehran from using euros to develop its nuclear program.

The bill, in the early stages of drafting, would target the ECB’s cross-border payment system and impose U.S. economic penalties on entities that use the European Central Bank to do business with Iran’s government, the aide said on condition of anonymity.

U.S. sanctions have cut Iran off from the U.S. financial system and largely prevented it from conducting bank transactions in dollars, which for the most part must clear through U.S. banks. The draft legislation appears designed to make it harder for Iran to use euros as a substitute.

One of the lawmakers working on the proposed legislation is Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, an advocate of tighter sanctions on Iran. It is unclear how much support in Congress there may be for the idea.

The European Central Bank’s so-called Target2 system is used to settle cross-border payments in Europe and processes around 350,000 payments daily, according to the most recent figures made available.

Although the ECB already complies with European Union sanctions against Iran, the proposed bill is aimed at pressing Europe to do more to prevent Iranian firms and banks from using the Target2 system to conduct transactions involving euros.

“The ECB ensures that no illegitimate transactions are cleared in Target2,” a spokesman for the euro zone’s central bank said. “But any sanctions are EU sanctions and not an ECB competence.”

The ECB provision is part of a wider U.S. bill aimed at choking off funds to the Iranian government.

It is unclear when the bill would be introduced or whether there would be support in the U.S. Congress or the Obama administration to enact another set of economic sanctions.

The United States and the European Union have worked mostly in tandem to impose harsh economic sanctions against Iran, which have so far slashed the country’s oil revenues, disrupted trade and weakened its currency.

ECB representatives are due in Brussels at the start of March for discussions on various Iran sanctions issues, EU sources said, though the meetings were not specifically to discuss Target2.

Last year, U.S. lawmakers succeeded in pressuring Belgium-based SWIFT electronic payment system to block Iranian transactions. SWIFT, which facilitates the bulk of global cross-border payments, disconnected designated Iranian financial firms from its messaging system after European regulators ordered the company to do so.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/21/us-ecb-iran-idUSBRE91K0V420130221

 

How Egypt Is Helping Iran to Circumvent Sanctions

The excellent Jonathan Schanzer explains the double-game that Egypt, a nation that receives billions of dollars of US foreign aid, is playing to enable Iranian treachery and aggression….

If you ever find yourself in downtown Tehran, it’s hard to miss the five-story-tall mural commemorating Khaled al-Islambouli, the man who assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in October 1981. The mural has long been a symbol of Iran’s deep disdain for Egypt’s secular rulers, particularly their peace with Israel and their alliance with the U.S. The mutual animosity has endured over the years, from Egyptian support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War to the 2009 arrest of 26 members of an Iran-backed Hizbullah cell in Egypt. In recent years, Cairo has also expressed its staunch opposition to Iran’s nuclear program, which Egypt and other Arab states view as a threat.

But Egypt-Iran relations are not as black-and-white as they may seem. Egypt is expanding its financial ties with Iran through a jointly owned financial institution: the Misr Iran Development Bank. MIDB was founded in 1975, four years before Iran’s Islamic revolution, and has somehow endured the tumult since. Today, the MIDB may have become a vehicle for Iran to circumvent economic sanctions with extensive help from Egypt, one of America’s closest allies in the region. It is a testament to how difficult it can be for the U.S. to enforce international sanctions, even among countries that appear to be natural allies in the effort to deter Iran.

http://schanzer.pundicity.com/8336/how-egypt-is-helping-iran-to-circumvent-sanctions