The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said in a statement on Tuesday that it had designated an Iranian businessman identified as Seyed Asadoollah Emamjomeh and his corporation for their role in Iran’s crude oil and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) exports.
OFAC claimed Emamjomeh and his network have been “collectively responsible for shipping hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian LPG and crude oil to foreign markets.”
It even claimed that the businessman, who is based in Iran, and his son, who it said was a British and Iranian national based in the United Arab Emirates, have sought to export LPG even from the United States to evade US sanctions and generate revenue for Iran.
The Treasury said that Emamjomeh’s company had exported thousands of shipments of LPG from Iran to Pakistan and had conducted tens of millions of dollars' worth of business on behalf of the PGPICC, an Iranian state-run petrochemical company.
The new sanctions are the seventh such action taken by the US government against Iran since February 4, when US President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum ordering a campaign of maximum pressure on the country.
They come despite the fact that Iran and the US have held two rounds of reportedly positive talks to settle disputes about Tehran’s nuclear program. The indirect talks started earlier this month in Oman’s capital, Muscat, and continued over the weekend in Italy’s Rome.
Top representatives from Iran and the US are scheduled to meet again on Saturday in Muscat to review technical negotiations between their exports that will start on Wednesday in Rome.
Press TV