The U.S. on Thursday announced that it will extend wide sanctions relief for Iran under the 2015 nuclear deal, sources familiar with the matter said.
But no decision on whether to preserve the deal itself has yet been made.
The U.S. will renew a waiver of the key, and most punitive, sanctions that it imposed on Iran before the nuclear deal was ultimately struck, the sources said.
Tucked into Section 1245 of the 2012 National Defence Authorisation Act, Washington threatened to sanction the banks of Iran’s main oil customers if they did not significantly cut their purchases of Iranian crude.
Under the law, these sanctions can be waived for a maximum of 120 days, forcing the U.S. government revisit the issue every four months.
Former President Barack Obama’s administration, which negotiated the deal, did so in mid-January and President Donald Trump’s administration did so again on May 17.
Sources familiar with the matter stressed that the wider U.S. policy toward Iran, and whether to preserve the deal that gave Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for curbing its nuclear programme, has yet to be decided.
Trump has criticised the deal, but some of his top advisers believe he should preserve it.
(Source: Reuters/NAN)