Trump announces to impose sanctions on national bank of Iran

The United States President Donald Trump has announced on Friday that the US is imposing sanctions on the national bank of Iran. He did not give any other details about the sanctions but called them the “highest sanctions ever imposed on a country." 

Besides the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also took action the National Development Fund of Iran (NDF) and Etemad Tejarate Pars Co.

The US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the bank was Tehran's last source of funds.

The announcement was made before the reporters in the Oval Office, where Trump and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison were scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting.

Asked about the possibility of a military response on Iran, Trump said the United States was always prepared and that a military strike was always a possibility.

Reacting to the announcement, the Russian Foreign Ministry responded by saying that the new sanctions against the Iranian national bank are "illegitimate".

The ministry added that Russia will keep cooperating with Tehran in the banking sphere, despite the new sanctions.

Donald Trump has made these comments two days after he announced via Twitter that he had instructed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin “to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran!”

I have just instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 18, 2019

The new development has come around a week after two Aramco plants in Saudi Arabia which are at the heart of the kingdom's oil industry and included the world's biggest petroleum processing facility, were attacked by drones last weekend on September 14.

The responsibility of the attack was claimed by Iran aligned Houthi group which is battling a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen but the United States blamed Iran for the incident.

The attack carried out last Saturday triggered the biggest jump in oil prices in almost 30 years. The prices jumped roughly 12 percent on Monday after the attack sliced the kingdom's production in half and intensified concerns of retaliatory actions in the Middle East.

Further details are awaited.

This is a developing story.