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Trump imposes sanctions on Iran's supreme leader
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IANS | 25 Jun, 2019
US President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order imposing
financial sanctions on Iran's supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, in the wake of the Iranian downing of a US drone.
The
sanctions "will deny the supreme leader and the supreme leader's office
and those closely affiliated with him and the office, access to key
financial resources and support," the President told reporters in the
Oval Office before putting his signature to the document, the Efe news
reported.
"Today's actions follow a series of aggressive
behaviours by the Iranian regime in recent weeks, including shooting
down of US drones," Trump said, flanked by Treasury Secretary Steve
Mnuchin and Vice President Mike Pence.
"The supreme leader of
Iran is one who ultimately is responsible of the hostile conduct of the
regime. He's respected within his country. His office oversees the
regime's most brutal instruments, including the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps," the President said of Khamanei.
Until now, the US
sanctions against Iran have targeted broad economic sectors and
government entities, such as the Revolutionary Guard, as opposed to
specific individuals.
At the same time, Trump reiterated his
desire for negotiations with Iran to reduce tensions, a proposal that
Khamanei has rebuffed.
"I think a lot of restraint has been shown
by us and that doesn't mean we're going to show it in the future," the
President said. "But I felt I wanted to give this a chance, give it a
good chance. Because I think Iran has potentially a phenomenal future."
"These
measures represent a strong and proportionate response to Iran's
increasingly provocative actions," Trump said, days after vetoing a
military response to the downing of the drone on the grounds that the
likely casualties from strikes on Iran would be "disproportionate"
relative to the Iranian attack on an unmanned aircraft.
Among the
"provocative actions" by Iran, he pointed to the downing of the drone
and attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, though he denied a
direct link between the drone incident and the new sanctions.
"This was something that was going to happen anyway," Trump said.
Mnuchin,
meanwhile, said that "some of these were in the works, some of these
were results of recent activities. I'm not going to identify which is
which."
Iran denies having anything to with the attacks on
tankers and says that the US drone violated Iranian airspace. The
Pentagon insists the unmanned aircraft was flying over international
waters.
Mnuchin also signalled his intention to impose individual
sanctions on Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who
represented Tehran in the negotiations that led to the 2015 Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which limited Iranian nuclear
activity in exchange for relief from sanctions.
Trump withdrew
the US from the JCPOA in 2018 and Khamenei says he is not interested in
negotiations until and unless Washington returns to the 2015 pact and
ends sanctions that are harming the Iranian economy.
Iran and the
rest of the signatories - Russia, China, France, Germany, the United
Kingdom and the European Union - officially remain committed to the
JCPOA.
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