Iran sanctions 15 US officials as nuclear talks hamper

Iran said on Saturday that it had imposed sanctions on 15 more U.S. officials, including former Army Chief of Staff George Casey and former President Donald Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani, as months of talks to revive a 2015 nuclear deal have stalled.

Almost all the officials named served during Trump's administration which imposed sanctions on Iranian officials, politicians and companies and withdrew the United States from the Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers.

In a statement carried by local media, the Iranian foreign ministry accused the U.S. officials of supporting “terrorist groups and terrorist acts” against Iran, and Israel’s “repressive acts” in the region and against the Palestinian people.

Eleven months of indirect talks between Iran and the United States in Vienna on salvaging the deal have stalled as both sides say political decisions are required by Tehran and Washington to settle the remaining issues.

Gen. Austin Scott Miller, former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, former U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and several former ambassadors are among the officials targeted by the new Iranian sanctions.

In a similar move announced in January, Iran imposed sanctions on 51 Americans, many of them from the U.S. military, over the 2020 killing of General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Iraq.

Last year, it imposed sanctions on Trump and several senior U.S. officials.

SOURCE: REUTERS