Iran announced today that it has begun imposing sanctions on 15 American officials, including former US Joint Chiefs of Staff George Casey and former US President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
The sanctions came after indirect talks between Washington and Tehran to revive the 2015 nuclear deal stalled.
In 2018, then-president Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement, causing Tehran to begin violating its nuclear obligations nearly a year later.
Almost all of the officials named in Iran’s sanctions served during the Trump administration, which imposed sanctions on Iranian officials, politicians, and companies.
General Austin Scott Miller, the former commander of US forces in Afghanistan, former US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and several former US ambassadors are among the officials targeted by today’s Iran sanctions.
In a statement in the Iranian media, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the American officials of supporting “terrorist groups and terrorist acts” against Iran and supporting “oppressive actions” of Israel against the region and the Palestinian people.
The 11-month-long indirect talks between Iran and the US in Vienna to save the deal stalled as both sides said there were political decisions Tehran and Washington had to make to resolve remaining issues.
Iranian President Ibrahim Reisi said today that Tehran will not relinquish its right to develop its nuclear industry for peaceful purposes and that all parties involved in revival talks of the 2015 nuclear deal must respect this.
Last January, Tehran announced sanctions on 51 Americans, mostly from the US military, citing the killing of General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Iraq in 2020. Last year, sanctions were imposed on Trump and several senior US officials.