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N-program: US tightens financial squeeze on Iran
Published on Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 18:23 in 
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NO BUSINESS: US companies and individuals are barred from doing business with blacklisted Iranian firms.
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New Delhi: The US government is stepping up its sanctions against Iran and increasing pressure on Iranian companies suspected of supporting Iran's nuclear programme.
The US Treasury and other government agencies have blacklisted and applied asset freezes against 15 Iranian entities so far this year.
"We believe that there is a real potential that these sanctions will have the effect of changing the government of Iran's mind about the defiant policy it is currently pursuing," a news agency quoted Stuart Levey, the Treasury's undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence as saying.
American companies and individuals are barred from doing business with blacklisted Iranian firms.
Most of the Iranian companies targeted by the US in 2007 operate in the nuclear, energy and industrial firms.
But Iran's banking sector is also in Washington's sights, as well as Iranian groups it says fund "terrorist" organizations such as Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based Shiite political and militant group.
The Treasury has also blacklisted Iran's fifth-largest state-owned bank in January, claiming it had funded weapons proliferation.
US President George W Bush claims Iran is racing to develop nuclear weapons, something that Tehran, which has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, denies.
The United Nations has also invoked sanctions against Iran over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, which can be used to construct a nuclear bomb.
(with agency inputs)
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