US sanctions the Iranian national bank but calls for military restraint
Donald Trump has called for military restraint against Iran but says the US has now issued “the highest sanctions ever imposed on a country”.
US President Donald Trump says his administration is imposing additional sanctions on Iran following last weekend’s attack on Saudi oil facilities, which the administration has blamed on the Islamic Republic.
Speaking in the Oval Office during a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Mr Trump said: “We have just sanctioned the Iranian national bank.”
“These are the highest sanctions ever imposed on a country,” he said.
“It’s too bad what’s happening with Iran. It’s going to hell. … they are broke and they could solve the problem very easily. All they would have to do is stop with the terror,” he said.
Mr Trump said he is exercising restraint against Iran from a military point of view.
Mr Trump said that during the 2016 presidential campaign, some of his critics warned that he would get the United States into war.
Mr Trump said he could have easily ordered military strikes against Iran, but doesn’t want to have to do that.
The attacks and recriminations are increasing fears of an escalation in the region.
The US has already applied an arsenal of sanctions on Iran since the administration withdrew in November from the 2015 nuclear deal.
Still, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says the latest sanctions demonstrate the US is continuing a maximum pressure campaign, asserting “we have now cut off all funds to Iran.”
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has taken journalists to the site of a missile-and-drone attack on a facility at the heart of the kingdom’s oil industry.
Journalists arrived on Friday to Buqayq in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, home to the Abqaiq oil processing facility.
That facility was hit in an attack September 14 that halved the kingdom’s oil production and has disrupted global energy supplies.
The US alleges Iran carried out the attack.
Saudi Arabia says the assault was “unquestionably sponsored by Iran.”
Iran denies being involved in the attack and warns any retaliatory strike on it by the U.S. or the kingdom will result in “an all-out war.”
Yemen’s Iranian-allied Houthi rebels claimed the assault, but analysts say the missiles used wouldn’t have enough range to reach the site from Yemen.
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