The US and its allies Britain, France and Germany are pushing other countries on the UN nuclear watchdog’s board to pass a resolution this week reporting Iran to the UN Security Council for the first time in 20 years, diplomats said yesterday.
If passed, the resolution would follow up on one adopted on June 12 of last year declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for not fully co-operating with an investigation into uranium traces found at undeclared sites.
Israel started bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities the next day, soon joined by the United States, destroying or badly damaging Iran’s uranium-enrichment plants.
Iran has not let International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors return to the bombed sites since then or verify what remains of its stocks of enriched uranium, some of which was enriched to up to 60 per cent purity, a short step from weapons grade.
A resolution by the IAEA’s 35-nation board reporting Iran to the Security Council would also be the culmination of a standoff over IAEA access to those sites, since the board has passed two resolutions in the past year demanding Iran declare its enriched uranium stocks and grant the IAEA full access to verify them.
A draft text for the resolution has yet to be formally submitted to the board and negotiations between countries over the exact wording are ongoing, diplomats said. A draft is usually formally submitted early in the week of a board meeting.
As a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has the right to develop nuclear technology, including enrichment, for peaceful purposes. Iran says it would never produce nuclear weapons.
It is, however, the only country to enrich to 60pc without making a bomb. The amount it has enriched to that level is ‘a matter of serious concern’ to the IAEA.
The IAEA believes well over 200kg of that highly enriched uranium has survived the bombardments and is held in a tunnel complex at Isfahan and at the Natanz facility.
The US Treasury Department, meanwhile, imposed sanctions on a small Turkish investment bank and two subsidiaries as part of the Trump administration’s campaign to increase economic pressure on Iran, the department said.
The Treasury said it designated Istanbul-based Golden Global Yatirim Bankasi Anonim Sirketi, asset manager Golden Global Portfoy Yonetimi Anonim Sirketi and asset leasing company Golden Global Varlik Kiralama Anonim Sirketi for facilitating trade between China and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force.
The move marks the first time a bank in a Nato ally has been hit under the current campaign. Washington is tightening its economic squeeze on Tehran as US military strikes and a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have failed to force Iran to the negotiating table.
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said the sanctions put all three entities on its Specially Designated Nationals list, cutting them off from the dollar-based financial system. Treasury also issued a general licence to allow the wind-down of transactions with the sanctioned entities.
The latest US government action sent a clear message to institutions that the US government believes are facilitating trade with Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
“We know who you are, we know where you are, and we will continue to take action together with our allies and partners until we have buried the head of the Iranian snake,” he said.
On X, he said the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz had prevented Iranian crude cargoes from reaching China, heaping pressure on Beijing, which relies on Iran for crude oil, and Tehran, which needs the revenue to continue the war.
“Inventory cannot be replenished as crude piles up aboard vessels trapped inside the strait. Iran’s export lifeline is being cut off: stranded oil, finite storage, and rapidly shrinking revenue,” he said. Separately he told America’s Voice News that further sanctions against another bank were possible next week.
Golden Global Yatirim Bankasi, Türkiye’s 35th-largest bank, rejected the Treasury’s allegations. It said it has complied with local and international banking and compliance requirements, adding it would pursue legal rights against the unfounded allegations. It added that individuals and entities named in the OFAC sanctions decision were not its customers and that it had no direct or indirect dealings with them.
Golden Global Yatirim Bankasi held total assets of about 25 billion Turkish lira ($516.63m) in 2025, according to database TheBanks.EU.
Miad Maleki, sanctions expert at the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies, said the Turkish bank was tiny, but it was the first in a Nato country to be hit under the current operation.
“The message to Ankara is pretty blunt: as the Gulf gets shut down, Türkiye is the obvious place for this money to move next, and Treasury is already there,” he said.
Any foreign bank that keeps doing business with the Turkish bank was also at risk, he said, adding, “That knock-on effect is the real point of an action like this, not the half-billion-dollar bank itself.”
The Treasury said in a statement that Golden Global was established for the purpose of enabling Iran’s shadow banking network to transfer oil revenues from China to Türkiye, where it could then be converted to cash and gold by money exchangers.
The Treasury said that Golden Global has knowingly offered to provide correspondent banking services to Iranian financial institutions, enabling transactions through accounts controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force and its proxies, including Turkish businessman Sitki Ayan and his companies, which were hit with sanctions in 2022.
Bessent, who last month announced an ‘economic onslaught’ against Iran’s financial links around the world, has said Washington is trying to force Tehran back to the negotiating table.
Last week, Washington moved to impose Patriot Act curbs on Egyptian lender Banque Misr’s branches from US dollar transactions over their dealings with Iran.
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