WASHINGTON, May 27 – The United States on Wednesday issued new Iran-related sanctions by adding the Persian Gulf Strait Authority to its Specially Designated Nationals list, the Treasury Department’s website showed.
• The authority is a body Iran has set up to manage requests for passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
• Tehran’s grip on the strait, the conduit for about a fifth of the global oil supply, has sent the world economy into turmoil.
• It closed the strait after the U.S. and Israel launched its war against Iran on February 28.
• The Persian Gulf Strait Authority published a map last week reaffirming Tehran’s claims to a wide stretch of water on either side of the choke point.
• The designation was announced by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which maintains the SDN list of thousands of names of sanctioned individuals and entities. REUTERS