Sofia: The EU said on Thursday it will begin moves to block the effect of US sanctions on Iran as efforts to preserve the nuclear deal with Tehran deepened a transatlantic rift.
The decision came as Russia and China took some of their most concrete moves yet to extend their economic influence in Iran, in the face of renewed US efforts to choke off Tehran.US President Donald Trump last week controversially pulled Washington out of the 2015 international deal with Iran that placed limits on its nuclear programme in return for easing economic sanctions. After EU leaders discussed Iran at a meeting in Bulgaria, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said the bloc would start measures on Friday to ease the effect of the US sanctions on European companies.
The “blocking statute” is a 1996 regulation originally created to get around Washington’s trade embargo on Cuba, which prohibits EU companies and courts from complying with specific foreign sanction laws, and says no foreign court judgments based on these laws have any effect in the European Union. — AFP
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