TEHRAN – U.S. Senate has postponed a bill to impose new sanctions against Iran due to “concerns” about Iran’s upcoming presidential election, Republican Senator Bob Corker has said.

Corker, who is currently the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said on Tuesday that the bill will not move forward for now.

The bill was introduced by a group of Democratic and Republican senators in March seeking to slap tighter sanctions on the Islamic Republic over its ballistic missiles.

This is while Iran repeatedly says that none of its missiles have been designed to carry nuclear warheads because nuclear weapons have basically no place in the Islamic Republic’s defense doctrine.

“We've got a Iran sanctions bill that has a number of co-sponsors that wasn't able to markup at present because of concerns about how the European Union might react and (Iranian) elections that are coming up,” Corker said.

Iran will hold its next presidential election in May 2017, when principlists hope to defeat moderate President Hassan Rouhani.

In 2013 presidential election, Rouhani promised to develop better relations with countries across the world, and partly succeeded to deliver what he had promised after the nuclear agreement went into effect, which led to expansion of ties with mostly Western countries.

New sanctions, however, could seriously hurt Rouhani’s chance of victory. 

MH/PA