US Condemns Houthi Missile Attack That Killed Civilians In Yemen

The United States Treasury Department removed sanctions on three Iranians Friday while saying this was unrelated to talks in Vienna aimed at restoring Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

A Treasury statement said that Behzad Daniel Ferdows, Mehrzad Manuel Ferdows, and Mohammad-Reza Dezfulian were all excluded from the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).  "These delistings do not reflect any change in US government sanctions policy towards Iran,” a Treasury spokesman told Reuters anonymously. “They have nothing to do with ongoing JCPOA negotiations in Vienna.”

All three individuals, who are shareholders and officials of Mammut Industrial Group and its subsidiary Mammut Diesel, were sanctioned in September 2020pursuant to Executive Order 13382, issued by President George Bush in 2005, targeting  “weapons of mass destruction and their proliferators and supporters.” The executive order threatened fines, imprisonment, and freezing assets.  

The three were designated because Mammut Industrial Group and Mammut Diesel, private companies with thousands of employees in Iran, were alleged by the US to have supplied "military-grade, dual-use goods" to Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization and specifically, Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, which makes liquid-propelled missiles.

On June 10 OFAC delisted three other Iranians – Ahmad Ghalebani, managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Farzad Bazargan, managing director of Hong Kong Intertrade Company, and Mohammad Moinie, commercial director of Naftiran Intertrade Company Sarl.  

Source: https://iranintl.com/en/iran-in-brief/us-condemns-houthi-missile-attack-killed-civilians-yemen