US State Department Announces New Sanctions on Iran Oil Network

The sanctions come as talks between Washington and Tehran were initiated in Oman.

View of an oil facility, on the shores of the Persian Gulf, at Khark Island, Iran, on March 12, 2017. Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images

The Department of State on Friday said it’s sanctioning dozens of entities, ships, and individuals in connection with the trade of Iranian oil and petroleum products, as Washington enters negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program.

In a statement, the department said two individuals, 14 “shadow fleet” ships, and 15 entities that it says has provided revenue for the Iranian regime “to conduct its malign activities,” including terrorism, were hit with U.S. sanctions.

“So long as [the] Iranian regime attempts to evade sanctions and generate oil and petrochemical revenues to fund such oppressive behavior and support terrorist activities and proxies, the United States will act to hold both the Iranian regime and its partners accountable,” the State Department said.

The new sanctions came as U.S. and Iranian negotiators carried out negotiations in Oman on Friday in a bid to ratchet down tensions over Tehran’s controversial nuclear program, the first talks since Israel and the United States launched strikes on its nuclear facilities last summer, and weeks after Iran initiated a clampdown on protesters that human rights group say has killed thousands of people.

President Donald Trump and his administration have issued multiple warnings toward Iran and its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in response to to reports that Tehran sought to reboot its nuclear program, as well as its treatment of protesters last month.

“While these negotiations are taking place, I would remind the Iranian regime that the president has many options at his disposal, aside from diplomacy, as the commander in chief of the most powerful military in the history of the world,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a White House briefing a day earlier.

Meanwhile, Trump directly warned Khamenei in a recent interview with NBC News, telling him he “should be very worried” if the country doesn’t come to a nuclear deal.

“Those beautiful B-2 bombers went in and they hit their target ... and obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities, the president said at one point during the interview, referring to U.S. heavy stealth bombers. At the time of the strikes, Iran would have a produced a nuclear weapon within one month unless the United States intervened, Trump added.

The strikes from Israel and the United States led to Iran firing barrages of missiles at Israel and at least one U.S. military base in Qatar over a 12-day period.

Earlier this week, Iranian state-run media said that the country’s forces seized two oil tankers operating in the Persian Gulf and claimed the vessels were smuggling fuel. State-run media did not provide the nationality of the tankers or what flag the ships were using.

Ahead of the talks, the United States’ virtual embassy for Iran sent out an alert to Americans advising them to leave Iran. U.S. citizens should depart by land to either Armenia or Turkey, two countries that share a border with Iran, the embassy said.

The U.S. Embassy said that it could not guarantee American citizens’ safety in the country. Iran and the United States have been without official diplomatic ties since the current Islamic regime took over in the 1979 revolution, ultimately leading to a more-than-yearlong crisis in which dozens of Americans, including diplomats, were taken hostage at the Embassy building in Tehran.