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US defends permits for deals in Iran

Following report revealing US companies continue to trade with Iran, other blacklisted nations, Treasury Department claims exceptions to US sanctions rules include agricultural, medical humanitarian aid

The US Treasury Department on Thursday defended its issuance of special licenses for American companies to do business with Iran and other blacklisted nations, in response to a New York Times report on deals made despite sanctions and trade embargoes.

 

An examination by the newspaper found the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control has made nearly 10,000 exceptions to US sanctions rules over the past decade, which enabled banks and food corporations such as Pepsi and Kraft Foods to do business in countries like Iran and North Korea.

 

A Treasury official said the majority of the cases examined by The Times were approved under a law requiring the Treasury to license exports of agricultural and medical humanitarian aid to Iran and Sudan.

"These are not discretionary exceptions to US sanctions made by Treasury," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

 

"Because the US has the toughest and most comprehensive sanctions against Iran, allowing for the exportation of food, medicine and medical devices is consistent with our objective of not hurting the Iranian people."

 

The Times said the 10-year-old law was so broadly written that allowable humanitarian aid has included cigarettes, chewing gum, weight-loss remedies, Louisiana hot sauce and sports rehabilitation equipment sold to the institute that trains Iran's Olympic athletes.

 

The paper said it found hundreds of licenses were approved because they were deemed to serve US foreign policy goals. But the examination also found cases in which the foreign policy benefits were not clear, the article said.

 

It cited one instance in which a US company was permitted to bid on a pipeline job that would have helped Iran sell natural gas to Europe.

 

Financial hardship

The US government has long banned American companies from investing in Iran's energy sector. After the United Nations imposed tougher energy and financial sanctions against Iran to curb its nuclear development program over the summer, similar bans have been imposed by Europe, Japan and South Korea.

 

Treasury officials have said the tougher sanctions – which have effectively forced many financial services firms to choose between doing business with Iran or with the United States – has imposed financial hardship on Iran's government.

 

The Treasury official said that in most of the decisions to allow US firms to do business in a sanctioned country, the licenses were approved to allow them to wind down operations, extricate themselves from existing contracts or export educational material.

 

"All of these licensing decisions advance our national security and foreign policy goals," the official said. "In none of these cases were licenses issued to provide commercial benefit to designated entities."

 

The Treasury official also said that allowing US companies to make food, agricultural products and medicine available to Iran is not diminishing the effect of the anti-nuclear sanctions.

 

Yitzhak Benhorin contributed to this report

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 12.24.10, 09:19
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