The United States will impose economic sanctions on eight Chinese firms for illegal sales of arms to Iran, The Washington Times reported Friday.
The alleged violations involved three cases of sales of advanced conventional arms and chemical and biological weapons components to Iran, the newspaper said, citing State Department officials.
The sales took place between September 2000 and October 2001 in violation of U.S. laws aimed at curbing transfers of weapons and arms-related goods to countries considered by Washington to be rogue states, the report said. "These are pretty serious cases and there is lots of intelligence to support them," one of the officials told the newspaper.
The State Department notified the Chinese government of the sanctions on Thursday and planned to make a formal announcement in the next few days, according to the daily.
It added officials declined to identify the eight firms that would be barred from doing business with the U.S. government for two years. They said the companies would be identified when the formal announcement was made in the Federal Register.
This would be the fourth time since September the Bush administration had imposed penalties on Chinese companies transferring arms-related material or technology to Iran, the report said. (Albawaba.com)
