US imposes new ballistic missile sanctions on Iran

The United States imposed sanctions on Friday on six subsidiaries of a company key to Iran's ballistic missile programme, citing continued "provocative actions" like Tehran's launch of a rocket capable of putting a satellite into orbit, Reuters reported today.

The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on six Iranian firms owned or controlled by the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group. The move enables the U.S. government to block any company property under its jurisdiction and prevents U.S. citizens from doing business with the firms.

"These sanctions ... underscore the United States’ deep concerns with Iran’s continued development and testing of ballistic missiles and other provocative behavior," Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said in a statement.

The Treasury move was announced just hours after the U.S. Senate voted almost unanimously to impose new sanctions on Iran, Russia and North Korea.

The sanctions in that bill also target Iran's missile development programs as well as human rights abuses.

The State Department charged on Thursday that Iran's test of the satellite launch vehicle was a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions as well as the spirit of the multinational Iran nuclear deal, under which Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear programmes in exchange for a lifting of some economic sanctions.

The U.S. government says space launches help a country develop technologies closely related to those of an international ballistic missile.

Source: Wam