US preparing new sanctions on Iran

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has described the punitive measures as a response to Tehran’s bombardment of Israel

The US government is working on a new batch of sanctions on Iran in response to Tehran’s aerial attack on Israel over the weekend, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has revealed. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has called on allies to impose punitive measures on the Islamic Republic.

According to Israel, Iran launched several hundred missiles and kamikaze drones late on Saturday, with the Israeli military claiming to have intercepted most of them. Iran, however, insists that it managed to strike several military installations.

Tehran has described the aerial bombardment as retaliation for an Israeli airstrike that destroyed Iran’s consulate in Damascus on April 1, killing seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers, including two generals.

In a statement on Tuesday, Sullivan said President Joe Biden has been cooperating with US lawmakers and foreign allies to devise a “comprehensive response” to Tehran’s actions.

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“In the coming days, the United States will impose new sanctions targeting Iran, including its missile and drone program as well as new sanctions against entities supporting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran’s Defense Ministry,” the official announced. The national security advisor added that Washington expects its partners to follow suit.

According to Sullivan, the new measures are meant to “contain and degrade Iran’s military capacity and effectiveness and confront the full range of its problematic behaviors.”

Speaking at a press conference during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings in Washington DC on the same day, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also confirmed that the Biden administration was likely to “take additional sanctions action against Iran in the coming days.”

She added that despite the US sanctions already in place, “Iran is continuing to export some oil,” and that “there may be more that we could do” in that respect.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), also on Tuesday, Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote that he had sent letters to 32 nations and had spoken to “dozens of foreign ministers and leading figures around the world, calling for sanctions to be imposed on the Iranian missile project and that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps be declared a terrorist organization.”

Tehran has been subjected to a wide range of international sanctions for decades over its missile and nuclear enrichment programs, with the West suspecting Iran of secretly attempting to develop its own nuclear weapons – a claim Tehran has denied.