Bank Melli, Iran’s biggest commercial bank, is set to be banned from operating in the European Union under proposals in the final stages of discussion in Brussels.
“It is important for the EU to come to agreement on stepping up financial pressure on Iranian banks as a means of demonstrating to the Iranian regime how seriously we take their nuclear proliferation,” said a European diplomat.
“Many people around the world are looking to Europe on this issue,” Stuart Levey, US treasury undersecretary, told the FT. “What Europe does is quite important.”
“We call on responsible banks and companies around the world to terminate any business with Bank Melli, Bank Mellat [another Iranian bank], Bank Saderat, and all companies and entities of [Iran’s] Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps,” Hank Paulson, treasury secretary, said on that occasion.