Iran to Lodge Complaint against Ban on CBI

Tehran plans to file a lawsuit against the western countries over their illegal sanction on the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran (CBI), an Iranian lawmaker announced on Saturday.Speaking to FNA, Rapporteur of the parliament's Economic Commission Seyed Ali Moussavi mentioned that the international law does not allow bans on supervisory banks because they are tasked with supervision and not banking operations, and the CBI is a supervisory bank and sanctions on it are, thus, "illegal"."Iran will file a complaint (against these sanctions) at competent bodies," Moussavi stated. Yet, he underlined that there are ways to bypass such sanctions, dismissing the possible impacts of such moves on Iranian economy. The legislator downplayed efficiency of the sanctions measure, and said sanctions against Iran will first harm the western economies. "Imposing sanctions on the Islamic Iran's banking system or economy will first harm the western countries." Last month, the US and Britain targeted Iranian financial sectors with new punitive measures, including sanctions on Iran's Central Bank and petrochemical industry. The sanction against CBI and Iran's petrochemical industry was adopted in a unilateral move by the US, Canada and Britain outside the UN Security Council as other council members, specially Russia and China, had earlier warned against any fresh punitive measure, including sanctions, against Iran.