Middle East News
US House votes for more sanctions on Iran
Sep 25, 2007, 22:39 GMT
Washington - The US House of Representatives voted Tuesday to impose more sanctions on Iran and urged the US government to designate the Iranian military as a terrorist organization.
The 397-16 vote would strip US President George W Bush of a waiver he has used to exempt foreign companies that invest more than 20 million dollars in Iran, based on a 1996 law.
US presidents have used the waiver provision in the 11-year-old law to avoid alienating European countries whose efforts are needed to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
The United States already has comprehensive sanctions against Iran.
Representative Tom Lantos, Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that Washington needs to act, alone if necessary, if the UN Security Council fails to agree to tougher sanctions.
'If multi-lateral sanctions are not in the offing, the United States needs to be prepared to tighten and to fully enforce our own sanctions, without any exceptions,' Lantos said.
The bill, as well as similar legislation in the Senate, calls on the US State Department to list Tehran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.
The US Defence Department has accused the Revolutionary Guard of fomenting violence in Iraq, including training and arming militants responsible for attacks on US troops.
The House bill passed Tuesday, prior to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's address to the UN General Assembly in New York.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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