US President Joe Biden in July 2022
US President Joe Biden has extended the state of emergency regarding Iran for another year, which would keep US sanctions imposed following the 1979 hostage crisis still in effect.
Joe Biden renewed the emergency with respect to Iran, pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Biden said on Tuesday that “Our relations with Iran have not yet normalized, and the process of implementing the agreements with Iran, dated January 19, 1981, is ongoing. Biden said in a statement published on the White House website, “For this reason, the national emergency declared on November 14, 1979, and the measures adopted on that date to deal with that emergency, must continue in effect beyond November 14, 2022.”
The national emergency was announced when radical students in Tehran seized the US embassy and took hostage dozens of diplomats, staff and guards.
The decision by then-president Jimmy Carter was meant “to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted by the situation in Iran.”
The extension of the state of emergency in relation to Iran comes at a time when negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement have stalled, with the White House saying it is no longer focused on that.
The suppression of the current antigovernment protests in Iran as well as regime’s deployment of drones to Russia to be used in Ukraine war have also triggered a new wave of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.