Reuters: The European Union sanctions Iran’s defense minister

According to the international group Tasnim news agency, the member states of the European Union on Friday imposed new sanctions against 9 Iranian individuals and institutions, including Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, the Minister of Defense of the Islamic Republic of Iran, agreed.

These sanctions are supposed to be applied under the pretext of sending Iranian drones to Russia. Iran has repeatedly denied the claim of sending drones to Russia to be used in war.

Reuters writes that the agreement was reached between the ambassadors of the European Union governments in Brussels and will be made public on Monday after the approval by the foreign ministers of these countries.

Two diplomats cited by Reuters have claimed that Ashtiani’s name is on the list of people who are to be sanctioned.

while in America, a few days ago, the representative of the state of Texas in the US Senate admitted the ineffectiveness of sanctions against Iran and announced that Iran’s crude oil sales have increased from 300,000 barrels per day to about 2 million barrels.

Ted Cruz, a hard-line Republican senator, admitted in the US Senate hearing that Iran’s oil sales have increased from 300,000 barrels in 2021 (1399) has reached more than 2 million barrels per day in 2024 (1403) and the US government has been unsuccessful in preventing the sale of Iranian oil.

Meanwhile, Secretary Anthony Blinken The US Foreign Ministry also said in response to Ted Cruz in this meeting that despite all efforts, Washington has not been able to block Iran’s oil sales route and Tehran has been able to sell its oil in various ways and in this way has also been successful.

Cruz continued in the hearing: Iran has earned about 80 billion dollars from the increase in oil sales; Iran’s shadow fleet had 70 oil tankers in November 2020, and now this number has reached 400. Blinken replied: We have imposed sanctions against more companies that operate in Iran’s petrochemical industry; According to the other controls that we have done, we have blocked the sales fee for them and the evasion ways that they have to do – which we are trying to cut off. has sanctioned and stopped about 50 planes from Iran’s shadow fleet; Washington has repeatedly imposed more than 600 sanctions against Tehran at different stages, but they worked hard and did everything they could to neutralize the sanctions. According to Blinken, the Iranian government was determined that the US sanctions and neutralized his allies and accomplished this task.

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