According to wall Street Journal, "in the mix are sanctions against Iran’s Special Trade and Finance Instrument (STFI), the mirror company to Europe’s Instrument for Supporting Trade Exchanges, a special-purpose vehicle set up to try to circumvent US sanctions," a person familiar with Treasury discussions said.
One possible channel for ratcheting up the pressure would be to penalize banks, insurers, traders or any other companies outside Iran that are still helping the country, a move supporters say would stifle the remaining flows of cash keeping the country and regime on life support, the report said about other possible new US sanctions for Iran.
Other sanctions could target economic sectors not already hit such as consumer- or industrial-goods manufacturing, or entities that move money or products in and out of Iran, such as trading houses or shipping concerns, the same report confirmed.
The US Treasury Department, which is responsible for levying sanctions, has declined to comment about the issue according to WSJ.
Trump said Saturday he planned “major” new sanctions against Iran to take effect Monday, without providing details.
According to Iranian officials, STFI is ready to start operation and Europeans have to purchase Iranian oil or establish a financial line with Iran to have it operational.
On May 11, the CEO of STFI, called SATMA in Persian, announced that Iran has established the coordinating company to INSTEX and now the ball is in Europe’s court to make it operational.
Rejecting the idea that implementation of the financial mechanism to skirt US sanctions, known as INSTEX, has been postponed due to some issues related to the Iranian side, Ali Asghar Noori stressed that according to the agreements, Iran is not in charge of taking measures to implement INSTEX and whatever has been done sought to facilitate the procedure for the European side and has been an aid to them.
STFI was established to ease INSTEX implementation and if the financial instrument is decided to become operational, there is be no problem having it run in Iran.
HJ/PR