WASHINGTON—A bill to slap new sanctions on Iran has been delayed in the U.S. Senate due to concerns about Iran’s May presidential election, in which conservative hardliners hope to defeat moderate President Hassan Rouhani, U.S. lawmakers said on Tuesday.
A group of Democratic and Republican senators introduced the bill in March seeking to impose tighter U.S. sanctions on Iran over ballistic missile launches and other non-nuclear activities, echoing a harder line on Tehran espoused by Republican President Donald Trump.
But on Tuesday, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker, said the bill would not move forward for now because of concern from the European Union that it might affect the upcoming elections in Iran.
“We’ve got a Iran sanctions bill that has a number of co-sponsors that wasn’t able to mark up at present because of concerns about how the European Union might react,” Corker said during a hearing on the EU as a U.S. partner in dealings with Russia.
