VIENNA — Both sides benefited from a meeting of technical experts from Iran and six world powers focused on proposals to end the standoff over Tehran’s controversial nuclear program, but the talks will not necessarily contribute to resolving the stalemate, diplomats said Thursday.

Speaking a day after the end of the Istanbul meeting, two diplomats familiar with the talks were at pains to emphasize they were not negotiations meant to overcome divisions that have stymied recent high-level talks.

Instead, they said, experts went into the technical nitty-gritty of what each side was bringing to the table at the more senior meetings. They said it was now up to officials at those higher levels to decide whether that more detailed knowledge could serve as the springboard for a new attempt to resolve differences.

Both of the diplomats come from Western nations and both demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge details of the confidential meetings.

One of them cited Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, an Iranian official at the meeting, as saying “I now understand the other side’s position better,” as the talks ended after a session that began Tuesday and stretched into early Wednesday.

He said the six nations on the other side of the table also came away “with a better understanding of what Iran’s position was but that does not mean the two sides will come closer to agreement.”

The last high-level meeting ended June 19 in Moscow. It and previous ones have foundered because Iran is not ready to consider demands that it curtail some uranium enrichment — a possible pathway to nuclear arms — unless the six recognize its right to enrich for what it says are purely peaceful purposes.

The six — The United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — are offering to ease restrictions on airplane parts for Iran’s outmoded, mostly U.S.-produced civilian fleet and technical help with aspects of Iran’s nuclear program that cannot be used for military purposes.

They want Tehran to stop enriching to a level just steps away from the purity needed to arm a nuclear missile and to shut down an underground plant where such work is taking place.

Iran in turn says that its right to enrich is enshrined in the nuclear nonproliferation treaty — and therefore sees demands to curtail higher enrichment as contravening international law. It says it needs to enrich to that level to power a research reactor and make medical isotopes.

It also refuses to shutter the underground facility, which it has fortified in anticipation of possible attack. Israel has warned of possible air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities and the United States has said all options are on the table should negotiations fail to bring Tehran to compromise.

The EU, U.S. and other nations suspect Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at developing atomic weapons. Iran denies this.

The Moscow talks agreed on little else but convening the Istanbul experts meeting, to be followed by talks between Iran’s No. 2 nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri and Helga Schmid, a deputy to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, in charge of convening the high-level negotiations.

An EU statement on the Istanbul talks said the experts had met with the Iranian team, and “provided further detail of the … proposal given to Iran in Baghdad (while) Iran shared further detail of their proposal; and the experts explored positions on a number of technical subjects.”

Iran is already under four sets of U.N. sanctions and measures levied by the U.S and tried unsuccessfully to use the Moscow talks to get the sanctions eased.

An EU ban on Iranian oil came into full effect July 1, adding to U.S.-led sanctions on Iranian crude and further cutting into exports of OPEC’s second-largest producer.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Declining oil exports, the lifeblood of the Iranian economy, will increase Tehran’s struggle to contain spiraling inflation and mounting unemployment amid its standoff with the West over its nuclear program.

“They will eventually have to close down production. Right now it seems very unlikely that they will get any relief from sanctions any time soon,” said an executive with a Western oil firm with a long history of dealing with Iran.

Exports in July will be a maximum of 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd), said an industry source familiar with Iran’s monthly shipping plans and who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Iranian exports have declined steadily from the 2.2 million bpd average in 2011, as its oil buyers cut imports to comply with U.S. and European Union sanctions imposed due to concerns the country is attempting to build a nuclear bomb.

Iran says its nuclear activities are peaceful.

It was estimated to have shipped between 1.2 million and 1.3 million bpd in June, industry sources said last month.

But actual July exports could be even lower as top buyer China disputes freight costs with Iran’s top tanker company, delaying the loading of cargoes set to flow east.

India, Iran’s second-largest oil buyer, could also reduce July loadings as Iran struggles to find tankers of the size Indian refiners require.

Japan and South Korea, among Iran’s top five buyers, have halted all Iranian imports this month due to complications with shipping insurance, also sanctioned by the EU.

Japan is expected to resume buying this year. It has been granted exemption from U.S. sanctions last month after having already steeply reduced purchases.

If Iran exported 1.1 million bpd in July, it would mean the country’s budget losing around $3.4 billion revenue this month compared with a year ago, when exports amounted to 2.2 million bpd and Brent oil prices stood at around $110 versus $100 today.

Iranian oil usually sells at a discount of several dollars to benchmark dated Brent.

DWINDLING STORAGE SPACE

As sales fall, Iran has been forced to store its unwanted crude on tankers in the Gulf and cut production to an estimated 2.95 million bpd, the lowest in nearly a quarter of a century, as it runs out of onshore and offshore storage capacity.

In April, shipping sources said Iran had been forced to deploy more than half its fleet to store oil at anchorage in the Gulf, equating to 33 million barrels.

The country is expected to store at least a further 8.3 million barrels this month, double the amount in June, the source familiar with the shipping plans said.

But as it stores more crude, it may struggle to complete deliveries to Asian customers, who request Iran makes deliveries on its own tankers.

The Islamic Republic is expected to load a maximum of 890,000 barrels per day for its top Asia buyers, the source said, down 40 percent from the 1.48 million bpd taken during the same period last year.

China was scheduled to take a maximum of 492,000 bpd for July loading and India some 300,000 bpd at most.

Japan will load around 98,000 bpd for mid-August delivery, industry sources said. In Europe, Turkey and Italy were the only countries which continue to import Iranian oil after the start of the EU embargo.

Turkey is buying around 160,000 bpd of oil from Tehran, down about a fifth from last year’s average. Italy was exempted from EU sanctions because it is owed about $1 billion by Iran and South Africa is also continuing imports.

This week, Kenya emerged as the potential buyer of up to 80,000 bpd of Iranian oil, but quickly cancelled the deal under pressure from Washington and Brussels.

(Reporting by Luke Pachymuthu in Singapore and Osamu Tsukimori in Tokyo, Peg Mackey in London; Writing by Randy Fabi and Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Simon Webb and David Hulmes)

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The Commission of Inquiry on Syria presented to the Human Rights Council the findings of its special inquiry of the events which occurred in Taldou, one of the larger towns of Al-Houla, 30 kilometres northwest of Homs.

More than 100 people were killed on 25 May during armed confrontations between Government and anti-Government forces. The majority of the casualties were reportedly women and children who were deliberately killed in their homes in two different areas of Taldou.

The Commission, which was not allowed to access the country to investigate, considered three possible scenarios for the killings which could have been carried out by Shabbiha or other local militias backed by Government forces; by anti-Government armed groups seeking to escalate the conflict; or by foreign groups with unknown affiliation.

“Inconsistencies in the available evidence hindered our ability to determine the identity of the perpetrators at this time,” said Paulo Pinheiro, Chairperson of the Commission. “Nevertheless, we consider that forces loyal to the Government may have been responsible for many of the deaths. We will continue our investigation until the end of our mandate.”

The Commission also studied the human rights situation in Syria since its last update to the Council in February 2012. It indicated that Government forces and Shabbiha had perpetrated unlawful killings, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture and other forms of ill-treatment, as well as sexual violence against women, men and children.

The Commission believes that anti-Government armed groups also committed violations by extra-judicially executing captured members of pro-Government forces, or abducting them to facilitate prisoner exchanges.

Pinheiro said that hostilities between pro and anti-Government forces had escalated dramatically over the reporting period and have extended to other regions not previously involved, despite commitment to follow the six-point plan devised by the UN and Arab League Joint Special Envoy, Kofi Annan, to end the crisis in Syria.

“The Commission has consistently expressed its concern about the deteriorating human rights situation in the Syrian Arab Republic. Gross violations of human rights are occurring regularly in the context of increasingly militarized fighting, which – in some areas – bears the characteristics of a non-international armed conflict,” Pinheiro added.

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Washington, DC – Human Rights First welcomes the decision by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to attend an emergency meeting on Syria this weekend. After no progress was made between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit, this meeting marks another opportunity for the United States, Russia and other countries to agree on concrete steps to resolve the escalating crisis in Syria.

“We expect to see concrete steps and action toward an immediate ceasefire to follow this emergency meeting,” says Human Rights First’s Sadia Hameed. “At minimum, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Turkey and the Arab League should use this meeting to agree to an international arms embargo on Syria and an ICC referral of crimes against humanity that have been perpetrated by the Syrian regime forces.”

Syria teeters at the brink of civil war with a death toll of 14,000 and violence escalating to levels even more intense now than before the Annan plan was proposed.

“With arms flowing unabated to the regime forces and opposition attacks on non-military targets emerging, it is clear that unless there is an immediate ceasefire, innocent Syrian civilians will continue to lose their lives,” says Hameed. “In this climate, inaction is simply not an option. While it is clear that foreign governments like the U.S. and Russia remain at odds about the fate of Bashar al Assad, confronting these differences must be central to these emergency talks if they are to have any real impact on the fate of the Syrian people.”

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Washington, DC – Human Rights First today said news that CIA officers are allegedly operating on the Turkey-Syria border and helping to vet the provision of weapons to the Syrian opposition raises some red flags.

“Any U.S. support to the opposition should always be in the interest of ending atrocities and advancing the peaceful democratic transition that Syrian activists and citizens have being calling for since this uprising began last year,” said Human Rights First’s Sadia Hameed. “The U.S. government must demonstrate due diligence to ensure that any weapons reaching Syria are not enabling atrocities. The United States should also step up the use of economic and political tools such as this week’s disruption of a shipment of Russian repaired helicopters that were headed to the Syrian regime.”

Human Rights First also renews its calls for Russia to immediately end its provision of arms to the Assad regime and for the United States to call for an ICC referral of crimes against humanity committed by Syrian regime forces against civilians since the uprising began.

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Kobler said in a statement on Monday that he feared that violence could occur if the residents of Camp Ashraf, in Diyala province east of Iraq, were not relocated to their new camp near Baghdad without delay.

He did not however the reason for the delay or who was responsible for it.

Part of the Camp Ashraf residents, members of the Iranian opposition group People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI) group; have already been moved to Camp Liberty, their new camp near Baghdad. Some, however, still remain there.

The ultimate goal of the relocation of the PMOI members is to resettle them in third country.

In July 2009 and April 2011, Iraq security forces attacking the camp clashed with the PMOI members. In total, about 45 people from the camp were reported dead in the clashes.

RY/AKnews

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Now that a new date has been set for nuclear talks between Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog in mid- May, to be followed by another round of nuclear talks between Iran and the five UN Security Council members and Germany on May 23, should the world breathe a sigh of relief regarding the threat of a confrontation with Tehran?

In other international crises, this very well could be the case. But when it comes to Iran, it seems the show just goes on and on. For almost a decade, the script has been the same; the cast of characters just keeps changing.

The problem is that this is reality, not a show.

We’re talking about the most fanatical regime on earth obtaining the most dangerous weapons. At first, the West thought it could enter into negotiations with “moderates” in Tehran, only to find there were none. Then there was the idea to seek a deal with Ali Khamenei, the regime’s supreme leader – as if Khamenei had not been actually pulling the strings all along. While the pretence of negotiations continues, Tehran keeps enriching uranium and nudges closer to the point where it has nuclear weapons within its reach and when it decides.

With its stalling tactics Tehran has bought itself ample time. But there have been big political plums for Tehran, too.

In its process of appeasement, the West compromised the Iranian Resistance by adding the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the main Iranian opposition movement, to its list of foreign terrorist organizations, and tacitly acknowledging that this was done only to mollify the mullahs.

Ironically, the Iranian opposition has been the eyes and ears of the world in finding and revealing Tehran’s clandestine drive to acquire nuclear weapons – and as many senior U.S. officials have acknowledged, it was they who exposed Tehran’s plans.  Yet, the State Department remains reluctant to remove it from the terrorist list, despite such removal by the EU and UK after successful court challenges founded on solid evidence; and despite a federal court ruling in July 2010 that the MEK has been deprived of its rights in the USA too.

After almost two years of procrastination and foot dragging by the State Department, the MEK has taken its case to court. On May 8, the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, will hear its plea to order the Secretary of State to act within 30 days on the removal of the designation. This move has gained support of about 100 members of Congress and an unparalleled group of distinguished former American national security officials, political leaders, and former military commanders.

This listing has been a gift for Tehran, enabling its efforts to murder the dissidents and justify its harassment of the 3,400 Iranian dissidents, members of the MEK, who have been living in Iraq for the past 25 years. These brave Iranian dissidents – who have nothing to do with terrorism – have paid dearly for this unjust labelling and have been subject to two violent attacks that cost dozens of lives and wounding almost 1,000 defenceless residents

Meanwhile, these unarmed men and women have been moving slowly from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near Baghdad for processing by the UN refugee agency for removal to third countries. But the Iraqi government, clearly acting at the behest of Iran, has done its best to make their lives miserable.

Conditions at the prison-like Camp Liberty have been barely tolerable, despite pledges made by the Maliki government to the UN and U.S., and the residents have even been denied the right to improve conditions for the sick and elderly, including equipment and facilities for paraplegics.
When the original transfer was agreed to, Secretary of State Clinton promised to assure the safety, security and humanitarian treatment of these dissidents. It is time for her to intervene personally on their behalf.

Also, their property must be protected. They have not been allowed to take most of their belongings from Ashraf, and it appears that the Iraqis will attempt to confiscate them and give them to their puppet-masters in Tehran.

Clearly, the U.S. and the West have three actions to take:

•    Stop Iran’s stalling regarding its nuclear program.
•    Protect the dissidents at Ashraf and Camp Liberty until they are free.
•    Remove the MEK from its unfair terrorist listing.

If we are serious about putting the threat of a confrontation to rest, we must allow justice to prevail and remove the shackles from the hands of Iranian dissidents so they can wrest their homeland from the clutches of the mullahs before the Tehran tyrants get their hands on the bomb. Tehran should get the message that the era of freebies has come to an end.

And this loud message does not cost a penny or a life.

Lord Carlile of Berriew is a Liberat Democrat member of the British House of Lords and also serves on the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom

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By LEO MCCLOSKEY, DAVID PHILLIPS, WESLEY MARTIN

One year ago, the peace at a refugee camp under the “protection” of Iraq’s government was shattered by the thunder of military vehicles storming the gates. Iraqi soldiers murdered 36 defenseless Iranian dissidents, and left hundreds injured in the rampage. Despite calls from the U.S. Congress, the European Union and the United Nations, there has been no independent inquiry into the incident. No one has been held accountable.

How could this massacre go unpunished? The answer goes into a dark, uncomfortable place.

This was not the first deadly attack on the unarmed residents, who are members of Iran’s Mujahedin-e-Khalq (PMOI/MEK), living in what is known as Camp Ashraf. There is a pattern of violence and intimidation against them at the hands of the Shiite officials of the Al-Maliki government, a government the United States paid mightily to train and set up.

A cruel irony of America’s sacrifice is that a sphere of influence now exists between Baghdad and Tehran that includes efforts to crush the MEK, the mullahs’ only viable and organized opposition.

The core members of the MEK — who promote a secular, democratic and non-nuclear Iran — were hounded out of Iran and set up Camp Ashraf near Baghdad 26 years ago. In 1997, as the United States pursued a futile policy of dialogue with Tehran, the opposition group became listed as a terrorist organization worldwide, despite the fact that the group shared many values with the free world. In diplomatic parlance, this is called a “confidence-building” gesture.

In 2003, U.S. forces assumed control of Camp Ashraf. At that time a thorough investigation, including background checks and interviews, was conducted on the residents of Ashraf, and it was determined that not one terrorist was among the 3,400 dissidents. The residents voluntarily disarmed to the United States and in return were given official “Protected Persons Status” and protection under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Iraq assumed responsibility for the camp’s security in 2009 and gave assurances that the refugees would be given “humane treatment.” But then came the brutal attack on the residents of Ashraf.

Video footage showed unarmed civilians being shot in the head at close range by Iraqi soldiers, or being run over by Humvees. Al-Maliki did not stop there — within days he vowed to close Camp Ashraf, which would have sent these defenseless people into the desert to fend for themselves.

Another atrocity was only averted after a massive international campaign compelled the UN to draw up a memorandum of understanding with the Iraqi government to assure the safety and welfare of Ashraf residents.

The Iranian opposition movement leader Maryam Rajavi agreed for the residents to move to a new home, an abandoned U.S. military base known as Camp Liberty. Some 1,500 have already relocated there. However, reports from inside the camp describe conditions as prison-like and not meeting the bare-minimum humanitarian standards. The residents fear another disaster is looming around the corner.

The issue at hand is now more than a humanitarian crisis; the people scattered between camps Ashraf and Liberty represent the only viable check on the power and ambitions of the Iranian regime. There is, however, one simple way the U.S. State Department can stop this persecution: Delist the MEK as a foreign terrorist organization.

Why, at a time when international tensions with Iran are escalating, when policy options for rolling back Tehran’s nuclear program are dwindling, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is condemning Iran for “interfering with neighbors” (in reference to Syria) and “exporting terrorism,” would unleashing the opposition be off the table?

Why would the U.S. government go so far as to launch an investigation into Americans who have dared to expose some dark truths about U.S. policy, as the Treasury Department recently did against several former senior U.S. officials from both parties?

Why would the U.S. government go so far as to investigate and harass American former senior officials who have spoken out against the unwarranted designation of MEK? That the United States is dragging its heels over delisting them is inexplicable, given that the UK and EU removed the MEK from the blacklist more than three years ago.

The United States and the U.N. need to expedite the process of relocating these vulnerable men and women to third countries and getting the MEK into the struggle to contain Iran. The United States needs to recognize the humanitarian crisis and the strategic value of the Iranian opposition before it is too late.

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To believe that the resumption of negotiations in Istanbul could — or ever will –avert Iranian nuclear breakout and a possible Middle East conflagration, is to believe in the triumph of hope over experience. When it comes to the Mullahs’ intentions, however, we believe that the past is best viewed as prologue.

Consider that on the eve of these new negotiations, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brazenly mocked President Obama’s “last chance” proffer to the Mullahs, declaring that sanctions were a failure because Iran has stockpiled enough hard currency to survive for years without selling any oil.

True or not, the fact remains that the so-called “P5 +1,” (the US, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany) have begun their first talks with Iran in over 15 months after a previous round of negotiations ended without agreement in January 2011.

It is hardly surprising to us that little of substance was discussed and that no concrete proposals or confidence-building measures were agreed to now, either.

After all, ten years of diplomatic efforts have only emboldened the Mullahs’ terrorist regime. These latest talks only enable the regime in Tehran to buy time while building their nuclear weapons program. But the Obama administration has another option worth trying at its disposal. Secretary of State Clinton got it exactly right when she focused world attention on the critical distinction between the people of Iran and the Mullah’s oppressive terrorist regime.

Following the April 1 Conference on Syria, Clinton rightly said that, “In the last six, eight months we’ve had Iranian plots disrupted from Thailand to India to Georgia to Mexico and many places in between. This is a country, not a terrorist group…the people deserve better than to be living under a regime that exports terrorism.”
As President Obama struggles to find a solution to Iran’s increasingly threatening nuclear ambitions, he should realize that the most powerful weapon the US can deploy now is not the sanctions of diplomacy, or the missiles of war, but support for regime change in Iran.

Opposition parties in Iran are brutally oppressed and the most viable organized resistance in the country—the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) has been exiled and persecuted relentlessly by the Mullahs for more than thirty years.
The regime in Tehran views MEK as an existential threat because MEK strives to replace the unelected, clerical regime with a liberal democracy that champions a non-nuclear Iranian future, equal rights for women and minorities, and a free press. But the major opposition to the Mullahs is being prevented from realizing these dreams of freedom for the Iranian people because both Iran and the US designate them as a terrorist organization.

MEK is a movement that epitomizes the very spirit of the Arab Spring. By removing MEK from an unjust designation, the Obama administration can create a new political dynamic – one that can effectively undermine the worlds’ leading state sponsor of terrorism.

The Clinton administration initially added MEK to the State Department’s blacklist in 1997 as part of a failed political ploy to appease Iran—mistakenly thought at the time to be moving towards moderation. The Mullahs demanded that the group be listed as a precondition for potential negotiations with the US. Those negotiations never materialized then — and won’t work now either.

Still, the Obama administration outrageously delays removing MEK, a declared democratic ally that has provided
invaluable intelligence on the location of key Iranian nuclear sites, from its list of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” (FTO) even though it meets none of the legal criteria.

This folly has given Iran and its proxies in Iraq a license to kill thousands of MEK members, including a massacre on April 8 of last year, that killed 47, including eight women, or wounded hundreds of unarmed members of the exiled MEK dissidents living in Camp Ashraf, Iraq—each and every one of whom was given written guarantees of protection by the US government.

Now that US troops have left Iraq, Iran is determined to extend its influence in the region and has vowed to exterminate the unarmed men and women at Camp Ashraf. The residents of Camp Ashraf have all been interviewed by the FBI and seven other U.S. agencies and there has never been a shred of evidence anyone in that camp was motivated by, interested in, or capable of conducting acts of terrorism.

In a bipartisan initiative, nearly 100 Members of Congress, including Chairs of House Intelligence and Armed Services as well as Oversight and Government Reform committees, have called for MEK to be de-listed.
By removing MEK from an unjust designation, the Obama administration can create a new political dynamic – one that can effectively undermine the worlds’ leading state sponsor of terrorism.

- Gen. Hugh Shelton (ret.), Tom Ridge and Patrick Kennedy
The unfounded MEK designation only serves as a license to kill for both the Iraqi forces and the kangaroo courts in Iran, which regularly arrest, torture, and murder people because of their MEK affiliation. It shames the State Department’s designation process that has wrongly maintained the blacklist for misguided political reasons and it prevents the safe resettlement of Camp Ashraf residents to other countries, including the United States where many Iranian-American citizens are waiting to be reunited with their exiled family members.

Nearly two years after a US Court of Appeals found that the State Department had violated MEK’s due process rights, and ordered a re-evaluation, Secretary of State Clinton is still “reviewing” this inappropriate and unlawful designation.

Under the agreement brokered by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), Ashraf residents are in the process of relocating to a site at an abandoned former US military base known as Camp Liberty, in Baghdad. Despite uninhabitable conditions there, and frequent assaults by Iraqi police, Secretary Clinton told Congress that residents’ cooperation in moving from their home of 26 years to Camp Liberty would be a precondition for delisting MEK.

So far, 1,600 residents have been relocated to Camp Liberty and this “process” has claimed one life and resulted in unprovoked attack by Iraqi police (at Iran’s bidding) that left 29 wounded last week. MEK members have shown remarkable cooperation and restraint and have been extremely tolerant and peaceful in dealing with Iraqi mistreatment. Still, the State Department continues to stall on de-listing the MEK, which explains why it has been ordered to appear in the US Federal Court of Appeals in Washington, DC on May 8 to publicly explain its reasons for inaction on this vital matter of grave humanitarian consequence.

In the meantime, one can only hope that Secretary Clinton means it when she says that the Iranian people deserve to be free of the mullahs. Unshackling the main Iranian opposition movement from an unwarranted State Department blacklist and honoring US promises to guarantee the safety of exiled Iranian dissidents would certainly be a good place to start.

General Hugh Shelton was the 14th Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge served as the first U.S. Homeland Security Secretary. Patrick Kennedy represented Rhode Island’s 1st District in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2011.

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As the Senate debates legislation to impose economic sanctions on the country as an attempt to persuade it to stop developing nuclear weapons, some Republicans want to expand the measure, reports CQ’s Emily Cadei.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who is away from the Senate recuperating from a stroke, drafted a lengthy amendment that would expand the sanctions.

Kirk’s amendment runs 30 pages and would expand existing sanctions to target all Iranian financial institutions and any individual or company that does business with Iran’s petroleum, natural gas or petrochemical sectors. It would also sanction Iranian telecommunications companies and those that produce other types of communication software and hardware, which lawmakers blame for helping to censor and suppress Iranian citizens.

Because the amendment would limit the Obama administration’s ability to negotiate with Iranians and other countries, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is attempting to push the bill through the Senate without any amendments.

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