EU re-imposes sanctions on Iran just days after the P5+1 agreement

EU sanctions are renewed on Iran’s Bank Tejarat and 32 shipping companies

by Jim Dean, Veterans Today.com: 

[Veterans Today Editor’s Note:  My, my… why do I smell the Zionist hand behind this turn of events, a move to undermine the Iranian negotiating team with their hardliners, that the West can never be trusted?

Even though Rouhani covered himself on this somewhat with his statements that Iran could also back out of the agreement at any time due to non-compliance, it is a big burr under the saddle for sure.

Of course, the final nuke deal is not done, so its provisions are not in effect to be broken, and the legal case in the courts is not directly in the P5+1 decision-making command structure. So my bet is that someone had been holding this card to play at the right time.

Re-instituting new charges for new reasons after the old ones have been overthrown is an old legal game. But it is also one that can tee off Appeals and Supreme Courts, in this case the EU Court of Justice. The proper punishment now would be for the high court to ask for an independent investigation of a possible espionage operation by those hoping to benefit from this wild-card play.

But that would take some cojones, which are often in short supply in the upper government regions. Taking down powerful people makes powerful enemies. So I suspect the court will probably just overrule the new charges, when the case reaches them again.

All that said, there is also the motivation that those who have to pay for the financial damages to Iran obviously do not want to do so. This might be the usual, “waive your damages claims, and we will stop fighting the sanctions release.”

This of course would waive the red flag for “no lose” bogus sanction claims in the future, without fear of financial penalties. If the big payout day ever did come, then those involved in pushing the bogus claims would be in the cross hairs of their citizens for blowing that money, and even more so if it were being done at the behest of Israel or the domestic Jewish Lobby. In time we shall see… Jim W. Dean ]

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–  First published  …  April 07,  2015  –

The European Union has re-imposed sanctions on Iran’s Bank Tejarat and 32 shipping companies, just a few days after Iran reached a mutual understanding with representatives of the US and EU over its nuclear program.

The measure, announced in a publication in the Official Journal of the European Union on April 7, comes despite an order by Europe’s second highest court to end the asset freeze on Iranian entities in January.

The General Court of the European Union on January 22 struck down the illegal sanctions that the 28 members of the European bloc had imposed against Bank Tejarat, saying the EU has not presented any justification for freezing the assets and economic resources of the Iranian bank.

The court, in a separate ruling, also annulled the bans on 40 Iranian shipping lines and companies linked to the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL).

In its new decision, the EU has used new legal grounds to impose sanctions on the Iranian bank and 32 shipping companies, according to a list published in the EU’s official journal on Wednesday. The names of eight Iranian shipping companies on which illegal sanctions had been imposed previously are not on the new list.

“Bank Tejarat should be included again on the list of persons and entities subject to restrictive measures, on the basis of a new statement of reasons,” the journal says, adding, “On the basis of a new statement of reasons, 32 of those entities should be included again on the list of persons and entities subject to restrictive measures.”

“This Regulation shall enter into force on the date of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union,” the EU said in the journal, adding, “This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.”

“The Council has decided that the restrictive measures” against the Iranian companies and bank “should be renewed until 13 April 2016.”

The sanctions had been imposed on the Iranian bank and the companies over allegations that they had had a role in the development of Iran’s nuclear energy program and circumvented US-led illegal sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

At the beginning of 2012, the US and EU imposed sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.

In October 2012, EU foreign ministers reached an agreement on another round of sanctions against Iran.

The move by the EU comes after eight days of marathon talks in Lausanne following which Iran and the six-member group of Russia, China, France, Britain, the US and Germany, aka P5+1, issued a joint statement on April 2 on their mutual understanding over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Iran and its negotiating partners are now expected to start work to draw up a final comprehensive deal over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program by the end of the self-designated June 30 deadline.

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