Trump said exploring fresh non-nuclear sanctions on Iran

US President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is said to be considering new sanctions on Iran which would be unrelated to the Islamic republic’s nuclear program.

According to a report Friday in the Financial Times, congressional sources say the new sanctions could pertain to Tehran’s ballistic missile program and its human rights record. The Trump team is currently “sounding out” Republican lawmakers on restrictions that would not violate the terms of the agreement reached between Iran and world powers last year.

In the past year Republican lawmakers have advanced several bills proposing new sanctions against Iran over it ballistic missile program. “The big difference next year is that we will go from a White House that did everything it could to block these bills to a White House that will be in favor and maybe even sponsor some of these proposals,” a Republican congressional source told the paper.

The report said that the sanctions could be imposed in an effort to reduce Iranian support for “militant proxy groups in the Middle East.”

Iran is the chief backer of Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, having helped set up the group in the early 1980s. Since then, Iran has supplied Hezbollah with a range of weapons and helped fund its social programs in southern Lebanon, and has used the group to carry out terrorist attacks against American and Israeli targets.

The US Senate moved Thursday to renew a decades-old sanctions law that lawmakers said gives Washington the clout to punish Iran should it fail to live up to the terms of the landmark nuclear deal.

Senators passed the bill unanimously, 99-0, two weeks after the House also approved the legislation by an overwhelming margin of 419-1.

The bill to grant a 10-year extension of the Iran Sanctions Act will be sent to President Barack Obama, who is expected to sign it. Although the White House said the bill is still being reviewed, Obama administration officials said they’ve determined it doesn’t breach the international accord meant to slow Iran’s ability to make nuclear arms. That satisfies a key condition Obama had established for his approval.

“These are the very sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table, and their extension is a key element in holding Iran accountable,” said Sen. Ben Cardin,-D-Md., who had led the effort to extend existing sanctions.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which had also pressed for an extension of the existing sanctions, praised the Senate. “Congress’ decisive action signals American determination to enforce the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran and re-impose currently waived sanctions if Iran violates the deal,” it said in a statement.

Iran on Friday slammed the decision, saying it did violate the nuclear agreement and promising an “appropriate” response.

“As repeatedly stated by high-ranking Iranian officials, the recent bill passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate to renew sanctions against Iran is against the (nuclear deal),” Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said.

“Iran has proved that it sticks to its international agreements but it also has appropriate responses for all situations.”

Ghasemi also said the ministry would report the vote “to Iran’s committee assigned for monitoring the implementation of the deal,” Reuters said.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had warned ahead of Thursday’s vote that any renewal of the sanctions would violate the nuclear agreement and be met with a “definite” response from Tehran.

“If these sanctions are extended, it will surely constitute a violation of the [nuclear deal] and they [the US] should know that the Islamic Republic will definitely react to it,” he said Wednesday without elaborating.

US lawmakers view the sanctions law, which is set to expire at the end of the year, as an important tool for holding Iran accountable for any violations of the nuclear agreement and also as a bulwark against Tehran’ aggression in the Middle East. The law, first passed by Congress in 1996 and renewed several times since then, allows the US to slap companies with economic sanctions for doing business with Iran.

The White House had previously laid out a litmus test for the law’s renewal, saying Obama would reject if it would undermine the nuclear agreement reached last year. In exchange for Tehran rolling back its nuclear program, the US and other world powers agreed to suspend wide-ranging oil and trade sanctions that had choked the Iranian economy.