Bloomberg – The managers of two companies that are part of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps have had their bank accounts frozen in the United Arab Emirates in response to a fourth set of UN sanctions over the Iranian nuclear program, said the head of the Iran-U.A.E. Chamber of Commerce.
“Khatam al-Anbiya and their subsidiaries, and companies that they thought were involved in Iran’s atomic work, are on the list” of 41 individuals and entities subject to the emirates’ action, Masoud Daneshmand, head of the chamber, was cited today as saying by the state-run Iranian Students News Agency. “I didn’t see a private company on the list.”
The U.A.E.’s central bank asked financial institutions in the federation to freeze the accounts in compliance with United Nations Security Council sanctions passed on June 9, the Emirates Business 24/7 reported on June 28, citing a bank circular. There was no immediate response to a telephone call and an e-mail to the central bank seeking details of the list.
Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters, the engineering arm of the Guards, says on its website that it has completed 1,836 projects and has another 288 under way. The projects vary from oil and gas to steel structures, port development and agriculture, it said.
Iran has denied allegations from the U.S. and some of its allies that the nuclear program may be intended for weapons development. It says its nuclear work is for civilian purposes and has rebuffed UN demands to suspend production of enriched uranium, which can fuel a reactor or form the core of a bomb.
“We don’t like the behavior of the Emiratis,” Daneshmand said. “They’re implementing things that are not required by the United Nations Security Council sanctions and Iranian businessmen don’t like it.”
Sanctions are a temporary thing, according to Daneshmand. Iran and the U.A.E. will always be on the two sides of the Persian Gulf and should build their relations on that basis, Daneshmand was cited as saying.
