WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump plans to issue an executive order allowing him to impose US sanctions on anyone who violates a conventional arms embargo against Iran, four sources familiar with the matter have said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the sources said on Thursday that the executive order was expected to be issued in the coming days and would allow the President to punish violators with secondary sanctions, depriving them of access to the US market.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The cause for the US action is the impending expiry of a United Nations arms embargo on Iran and to warn foreign actors - US entities are already barred from such trade - that if they buy from or sell arms to Iran, they will face US sanctions.
Under the 2015 nuclear deal that Iran struck with six major powers - Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States - the UN conventional arms embargo is set to expire on Oct 18, shortly before the Nov 3 US election.
The US, which abandoned the nuclear deal in May 2018, said it has triggered a "snapback", or resumption, of all UN sanctions on Iran, including the arms embargo, which would take effect at 8pm today (8am tomorrow, Singapore time).
Other parties to the nuclear deal and most of the UN Security Council have said they do not believe the US has the right to reimpose the UN sanctions and that the US move at the UN has no legal effect.
"It is obvious that none of the Security Council members have accepted the eligibility of US claims," said Mr Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for Iran's mission to the UN, adding that the nuclear deal remains in place and all sanctions on Iran will be lifted under the timelines agreed in 2015.
Mr Trump's executive order is intended to show the US will not be deterred despite failing to win broader UN Security Council backing of the "snapback", said one of the sources.
Another of the four sources, a European diplomat, said the new executive order would put teeth behind Washington's assertion that the UN arms embargo would remain in place beyond next month by giving the President secondary sanctions authority to punish arms transfers to or from Iran with US sanctions.
Secondary sanctions are those where one country seeks to punish a second for trading with a third by barring access to its own market, a powerful tool for the US. Most foreign firms do not wish to risk being excluded from the vast US market.
The new executive order may be more symbolic than practical because so many Iranian entities and individuals are already subject to secondary sanctions, said sanctions lawyer Doug Jacobson.
"It's designed to send a message... that the US is unhappy that the other parties (to the Iran nuclear deal) did not agree to a snapback of arms sanctions," he said.
On Wednesday, the US Special Representative for Venezuela and Iran, Mr Elliott Abrams, said Washington planned to impose sanctions on those who violated the UN arms embargo, but he did not say it would do so with an executive order.
Diplomats expect Iran to be a focus when Mr Trump addresses the annual UN meeting of world leaders on Tuesday from the White House.
REUTERS
