The U.S. Treasury said on Friday it removed sanctions on three Iranians but said this did not reflect a change in its sanctions policy toward Iran and had nothing to do with talks on restoring U.S. and Iranian compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.
The Treasury said it had determined Behzad Ferdows, Mehrzad Ferdows and Mohammad Reza Dezfulian should no longer be blocked under Executive Order 13382, which targets proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters.
The order froze their U.S. assets and barred U.S. persons from dealing with them. All three were also subject to secondary sanctions, meaning non-U.S. persons who dealt with them risked themselves being sanctioned and cut off from the U.S. market.
A Treasury spokesperson stressed that the U.S. decision to drop the three from its list of Specially Designated Nationals who are subject to certain U.S. sanctions had nothing to do with indirect talks on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).