Iran Braces for Even More Sanctions

Banking sanctions go into place in February

As Iranian officials prepare for a new round of negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), US sanctions set to hit Tehran in February have Iranians worried that billions of dollars long stuck in bank accounts outside the Islamic Republic could soon become cemented in place.

The new US Treasury sanctions, which go into effect Feb. 6, will formally regulate global banking constraints that Iranian banks and businesses have been facing, on an informal basis, for more than two years.

Senior Iranian officials slammed the measures, calling them one of many "purely political" sanctions the US has imposed on Iran since the country's 1979 revolution and subsequent establishment of an Islamic Republic.