US lawmakers advance new Iran sanctions

Lawmakers say to pprove the legislation quickly to get it to Obama’s desk “in time to hand the Iranian regime a nice holiday present.”

The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday
approved legislation to toughen sanctions on Tehran
© AFP/File Mandel Ngan

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday approved legislation to toughen sanctions on Tehran over its suspect nuclear program in the wake of an alleged Iranian assassination plot.

The panel endorsed the measure by voice vote, with Democrats and Republicans closing ranks in the wake of US allegations that Iranian officials schemed to hire Mexican drug cartel killers to murder Saudi Arabia’s envoy to Washington.

“There should be consequences to this type of behavior, and I believe the international community must stand up against this threat,” said the committee’s top Democrat, Representative Howard Berman.

US lawmakers aim to tighten already considerable sanctions on the Islamic republic, notably on its energy and banking sectors, in a bid to force a freeze to what the West argues is a covert nuclear weapons program.

The measure calls for new sanctions such as denying US visas to anyone involved in Iran’s oil or gas industries, and an amendment authored by Berman aimed at cutting Iran’s central bank off from global financial markets.

Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the committee’s chairwoman, called on the full House and Senate to approve the legislation quickly to get it to Obama’s desk “in time to hand the Iranian regime a nice holiday present.”