If President Hussein Obama is upset over the way that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is handling the 'protests' in Turkey, he sure isn't showing it. Obama has
renewed the waivers from the Iran sanctions regime for Turkey and several other countries.
The US State Department on
Wednesday renewed six-month waivers on Iran sanctions for Turkey, China,
India and six other economies in exchange for their agreeing to reduce
purchases of oil from Iran.
"The United States and the
international community stand shoulder to shoulder in maintaining
pressure on the Iranian regime until it fully addresses concerns about
its nuclear program," Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement.
The waivers, which the State Department calls exceptions, mean that
financial institutions in the consumer countries do not risk being cut
off from the US financial system for the next six months.
Sanctions are one of Washington's main strategies to choke funding to
Iran's nuclear program, which Western countries suspect seeks to
develop the ability to make weapons. Iran says the program is for
peaceful purposes.
...
The other economies the State Department
renewed waivers for were South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa,
Sri Lanka and Taiwan. Japan and 10 EU countries got waivers earlier
this year.
What could go wrong?
Not only that, but the new sanctions themselves are not self-enforcing, and contain within them a requirement that the president, via executive order, state which companies are being sanctioned. How much do you want to bet that no executive order will be forthcoming...
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