WASHINGTON: US lawmakers aim to vote this week on new Iran sanctions that would tighten existing restrictions on the country's energy industry in a move the West hopes will stall Tehran's drive for nuclear weapons.
House and Senate negotiators from both parties reached agreement late Monday on legislation that would build on existing sanctions that target entities which do business with Iran's central bank.
Congressional staffers said lawmakers want to pass the legislation in coming days before a six-week summer break. They said a House vote is likely Wednesday, and a Senate vote Thursday or Friday.
The new rules, if agreed by Congress, would target any person or company which works in Iran's petroleum or natural gas sector, provides insurance to the National Iranian Oil Company, engages with uranium mining with Iran, or sells oil tankers to the Islamic republic, among other sanctions.
Washington and other Western powers believe existing and new sanctions will further deter Tehran from its suspected pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
Unless the Iranians "come clean on their nuclear program, end the suppression of their people, and stop supporting terrorist activities, they will face deepening international isolation and even greater economic and diplomatic pressure," said Senate Banking Committee chairman Tim Johnson.
The legislation is a reconciliation of a bill passed by the House in December and one passed by the Senate in May.
"This bipartisan, bicameral Iran sanctions legislation strengthens current US law by leaps and bounds," House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement late Monday.
"The bill sends a clear message to the Iranian regime that the US is committed, through the use of sanctions, to preventing Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold."
The legislation beefs up sanctions passed by the US Congress last year which imposed penalties on foreign financial institutions that do business with the Central Bank of Iran or other Iranian finance firms, essentially barring Iran's business partners from the lucrative US market.
The debate about sanctions comes amid deliberation over a possible first strike against Iran's nuclear facilities by Israel. Iran has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Last weekend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his doubts about the effectiveness of sanctions on Iran, saying that "all the sanctions and diplomacy so far have not set back the Iranian program by one iota."
During a visit to Tunisia on Monday at the start of a Middle East tour, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said sanctions were having a "serious impact" on the Iranian economy, even if their results may not be immediately obvious.
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