US imposes sanctions on Iran's Oil Minister

Shafaq News/ On Thursday, the US Department of the Treasury imposed new sanctions on Iran, including on Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad, commercial vessels, and entities.

In a statement, the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) accused Paknejad of overseeing the export of billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian oil and allocating large quantities of oil to Iran’s armed forces for export.

The sanctions also target several entities operating across multiple countries, including the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and India, for their ownership or operation of vessels that have transported Iranian oil to the PRC or lifted oil from storage in Dalian, China. These actions are part of the US strategy to disrupt Iran’s oil trade and reduce its oil exports to zero, further pressuring the “shadow fleet” that facilitates Iran’s oil shipments, the statement added.

“Treasury will fight and disrupt any attempts by the regime to fund its destabilizing activities and further its dangerous agenda,” the Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said.

Last month, US President Donald Trump reinstated his "maximum pressure" campaign targeting Iran’s economy while reiterating that Washington seeks a diplomatic resolution “to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons,” a claim Tehran consistently denies, reiterating its willingness to revive the agreement with the US.