Switzerland has announced that it has frozen the assets of a dozen Iranian companies in accordance with United Nations sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program. The 12 companies and 13 individuals have been added to an existing blacklist of 23 companies and 27 people. Five Iranian nationals are also banned from entering and passing through Switzerland, the government in Bern said in a statement. Switzerland will also ban the delivery of so-called ‘dual use’ materials that could be used for the manufacture of nuclear plants, and the export of some drones and missiles, the statement said.
The UN Security Council last month imposed its third set of sanctions against Iran in the space of 15 months to punish Tehran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, which world powers fear Iran could use to make nuclear weapons. The resolution gives Iran three months to comply with demands to suspend uranium enrichment, and includes an outright ban on travel by officials involved in Tehran's nuclear and missile programmes, as well as broadening a list of individuals and entities subject to an assets freeze. Switzerland's relations with the Islamic Republic came under criticism by the World Jewish Congress and others in recent months after foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey travelled to Tehran in March to help clinch a multi-billion-dollar gas deal between a Swiss company and the state-owned Iranian gas company.
Read about the WJC's campaign to Stop the Iranian Threat
