Report: Obama withholding details on changes to Iran sanctions guidelines

The Obama administration is refusing to provide Congress with details concerning a recent announcement that cleared the way for doing business with Iran, a new report indicates.

According to The Weekly Standard, new guidelines issued by the Treasury Department earlier this month eased the terms of the nuclear agreement significantly.

TWS, quoting congressional sources and experts, says that inquiries and criticism of the Obama Administration “have been met with blanket declarations that the guidelines contain nothing new,” noting that several other media outlets had also interpreted the guidelines as a “shift in policy and a relaxation of financial sanctions on Iran.”

The administration’s new guidelines are “fully consistent with the legislation Congress passed beginning in 2010 to impose secondary sanctions, and reflects the legal standard in place since long before these FAQ updates,” according to a letter from the Treasury Department, responding to an inquiry by Senate Banking Committee chairman Richard Shelby and obtained by TWS.

“But all the administration will do is keep repeating that there’s nothing new here,” a congressional source told TWS. “Meanwhile the Iranians have begun crowing that banks have to give them dollars and do business with them specifically because of the new Treasury language.”

The timing of the announcement made two weeks ago, close to 6 p.m. on the Friday before the Columbus Day long weekend, prompted suspicion that the administration was “trying to bury new concessions in response to renewed Iranian demands for more relief as part of last summer’s nuclear deal,” TWS said.

By: World Israel News Staff