The US will “ratchet up the pressure” on Iran to address international concerns about that country’s nuclear program, the Treasury Department’s top counterterrorism official said Friday.
“We have things that we can do to continue to intensify the sanctions,” David Cohen, the US Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in an interview with Peter Cook on Bloomberg Television’s “Capitol Gains” show. “We will continue to ratchet up the pressure to make clear to the Iranians that their only real choice here is to address the concerns about their nuclear program.”
The US has led a campaign to increase economic penalties on Iran to drive its leaders into making concessions on its nuclear activities. The US says that Iran is advancing toward the capability to produce a nuclear bomb while the leadership in Tehran says its uranium enrichment activity is for civilian nuclear power and medical purposes. Israel has threatened military strikes to prevent Iran from being able to produce nuclear weapons if sanctions and diplomacy fail.
“We have taken direct aim at Iran’s most significant source of revenue, which is its oil sales,” Cohen said in the interview airing October 21. He said that international financial restrictions have “multiplied” the impact of the curbs on oil sales.
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