Deceiving Australia: Tehran continues its attempts to escape US sanctions

Eslam Mohamed

In the face of the worst economic phase since the application of the US sanctions, Tehran continues its aggressive attempts to breach the sanctions.

Recently, the Australian company Quantum Fertilizer disclosed that it almost fell victim to Iran’s attempts to break through the sanctions. British newspaper The Guardian reported that the company is reviewing its operations to avoid repeated exposure to Iranian deception.

The company received a shipment of fertilizers from Iran late last month, which contradicts US sanctions, and therefore almost fell under those same sanctions, which punish any international party dealing with Tehran.

The company said it was tricked into the source of the product and quickly unloaded the $15 million shipment at a port in Yantai, Shandong Province, saying its contract with the Chinese supplier was for the supply of Chinese products only.

The shipping records, documents and videos found showed that the shipment was Iranian, initially aboard a ship known as CS Future, before being transported to China and unloading the cargo to the ship Aquila, which was used by the Australian company and was supposed to sell the shipment in India.

The Australian Department of Commerce issued a statement warning companies against foreign sanctions.

The French newspaper Le Monde revealed in an investigation that Iranian businessmen are now getting Turkish citizenship to circumvent US sanctions, explaining that if a businessman acquires Turkish citizenship, he can open foreign bank accounts easily.

In August 2018, Washington reimposed economic sanctions on Iran after it withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal. This has worsened the economic situation in Tehran such that some Iranian companies have been no longer paying their employees for more than two years.

In June, Washington imposed new economic sanctions on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior Iranian officials in the most prominent package in the sanctions process.

Tehran has announced that the imposition of sanctions would mean the closure of diplomacy between the two countries. While US President Donald Trump stressed that the ball of negotiation is now in Iran’s court, Tehran considered the offer of negotiation “a lie.”

European countries have launched a mechanism for trade communication with Tehran, away from the sanctions, with the aim of keeping Iran in the nuclear deal after Trump announced the decision to withdraw from it and re-impose sanctions on Tehran.

Iranian researcher Mohammad Alaeddin said there are parties in China helping Tehran circumvent the US sanctions.

He added that the aim of the sanctions is to force Iran to curtail its nuclear and missile programs and its support for proxy forces in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East. In contrast, Iran prefers the bitterness of sanctions to witnessing the collapse of its project in the region, and therefore it is trying to circumvent the sanctions instead of negotiating with the Americans.