US grants waivers

摘要

The US is granting 10 European countries and Japan exemptions from Iran sanctions that target financial institutions, because they have cut Iranian oil purchases. Banks in Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, the UK and Japan will not be subject to sanctions, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton says. President Barack Obama signed a bill at the end of last year that directs the State Department to impose sanctions on banks that do business with Iran's central bank, in a bid to thwart Iran's ability to find buyers for its crude in the hope of prodding Tehran to abandon a suspected nuclear weapons programme (AGM, 6 January, p3). The statute allows countries to shield their banks from possible US sanctions by reducing imports of Iranian oil "significantly".