Page 9 - IRANRptJun18

reportedly ordered to sell off business holdings and commercial assets “irrelevant” to their main function. Whether that order will stand given Iran’s evolving political and economic outlook in the wake of the US withdrawing from the nuclear deal on May 8, remains to be seen.
Rouhani said at the ceremony that Iran suffered from massive amounts of rentierism during previous rounds of sanctions applied to the country prior to the signing of the November 2015 nuclear accord. However, he added, the state would learn from that experience.
2.6 US sanctions Iran’s central bank governor as “specially designated global terrorist”
The US has imposed sanctions on the governor of Iran's central bank, Valiollah Seif, accusing him of providing support for terrorist activities. Both Seif and another senior official of the regulator, Ali Tarzali, were listed as "specially designated global terrorists" for allegedly assisting in funneling millions of dollars on behalf of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force (IRGC-QF)—the IRGC’s special forces unit responsible for extraterritorial operations—to support Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced.
"It is appalling, but not surprising, that Iran's senior-most banking official would conspire with the IRGC-QF to facilitate funding of terror groups like Hezbollah, and it undermines any credibility he could claim in protecting the integrity of the institution as a central bank governor," US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. He added: "The United States will not permit Iran's increasingly brazen abuse of the international financial system."
However, ordinary Iranians are generally far from impressed when Trump gives insights into what he claims he knows about the Islamic Republic’s support for terrorism. For instance, many Iranians are taken aback when Trump claims, as he did in his nuclear deal exit announcement , that Iran supports terrorist groups including Islamic State and Al Qaeda. The two groups subscribe to Sunni Islam and have called for the death of all Shi’ite Muslims—90% of Iran’s population are Shi’ite. Iran also claims to have been more responsible than any other nation for military breakthroughs that have almost cleared Islamic State from Syria and Iraq, and in June last year suffered twin Islamic State terrorist attacks in Tehran that left 13 dead.
The OFAC statement on Seif and Tarzali added that the designations "do not extend" to the Central Bank of Iran. The Office also blacklisted Al-Bilad Islamic Bank in Iraq and its chairman, Aras Habib, claiming he assisted the IRGC-QF in moving funds from Tehran to Hezbollah.
It has also been announced by the US Treasury that, starting from August 7, the US will impose sanctions "on the purchase or acquisition of US dollars banknotes by the government of Iran". The following November 5, further sanctions will be reimposed on persons "knowingly engaging in certain significant transactions" with the Iranian central bank.
9 IRAN Country Report June 2018 www.intellinews.com