The European Unions decision to re-impose sanctions on some Iranian companies could undermine the nuclear agreement between Tehran and the six major world powers, a political analyst tellsPress TV.
In an interview with Press TV on Friday, Kaveh Afrasiabi said the news about the EU re-imposing sanctions on some 17 shipping companies from Iran, does not send a good signal from European countries to Iran.
On Tuesday, The European Union said it is maintaining sanctions against all but two Iranian firms that won challenges to the bloc's sanctions regime in EU courts in September.
The bloc's move came just days after a historic deal between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - Russia, China, France, Britain and the US - plus Germany in the Swiss city of Geneva to lay the groundwork for the full resolution of the Wests decade-old dispute with Iran over its nuclear energy program.
In exchange for Irans confidence-building bid to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities, the six world powers agreed to lift some of the existing sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
We need the opposite signals that would show that EU is acting in good faith, easing sanctions and is smoothing the process for the implementation of the Geneva Accord, not the exact opposite, Afrasiabi pointed.
Following the Geneva deal, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Monday that the EU would likely lift some of the sanctions imposed against Iran in December.
At the beginning of 2012, the European Union placed an embargo on Iranian oil and petrochemicals exports, banned the trade of precious metals as well as transactions with the Central Bank of Iran and froze its assets across the bloc. The measures came into effect as of July 1, 2012.