Last week an Emirati newspaper reported that the seven-member United Arab Emirates federation was “tightening the noose” on companies the UN Security Council suspects act as fronts for supplies to Iran’s disputed nuclear programme.
Iran and the UAE have close economic and historic relations. Tens of thousands of Iranians live and work in trade hub Dubai and elsewhere in the UAE, many of them involved in the multibillion-dollar, re-export trade to Iran.
With Iran facing growing Western pressure, its relations with Dubai have drawn scrutiny from the US, which is spearheading a drive to isolate Tehran over nuclear activity the West fears is aimed at developing bombs. Iran denies the charge.
Iran has been circumventing restrictions on goods blacklisted by sanctions and much of the trade goes via the UAE, said Middle East analyst Gala Riani of IHS Global Insight.
The Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iran since 2006 over its refusal to halt sensitive uranium enrichment and open up to UN nuclear inspections. The US and European Union have adopted extra punitive measures.
“The UAE, and Dubai especially, has come under a lot of pressure…to tighten restrictions and controls on Iranian firms,” Riani said. They are now “signalling that they are playing ball with the international community”, she said.
The Abu Dhabi banking source said the central bank order was issued on Sunday and it listed 40 entities and one individual named in the June 9 UN resolution, which expanded a UN blacklist of firms whose assets worldwide are to be frozen for assisting Iran’s nuclear or missile programmes.
“You are required to freeze any accounts deposits and stop any remittances in the names of the (companies or persons) designated as being involved in the Iranian nuclear or ballistic missile activities,” the source quoted the bank as saying.
He was confirming a June 21 report in the Emirates Business daily. The central bank was not available for comment.
The latest UN resolution calls for measures against new Iranian banks abroad if a connection to the nuclear or missile programmes is suspected, as well as vigilance over transactions with any Iranian bank, including the central bank.
It blacklists three firms controlled by Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines and 15 belonging to the Revolutionary Guards, whose influence appears to have grown in recent years, and also calls for setting up a cargo inspection regime.
Gulf News, a UAE newspaper, last week cited official sources as saying that the operations of any companies proved to have connections with the Guards or other entities and individuals subject to a UN asset freeze would be shut down.
The UAE has closed more than 40 firms in a crackdown on illegal dealing in dual-use equipment and materials and money laundering, it said, without specifying when it happened or the intended destination of the goods.
Last year Dubai’s re-exports to Iran – goods originally coming from Europe, Asia or elsewhere and then sold on to Iran – rose 4.8% to Dh21.3bn ($ 5.8bn).
