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Obama Administration Urges States to Lift Iran Sanctions
(Bloomberg) Eli Lake - On April 8, the State Department's lead coordinator for Iran nuclear implementation, Stephen Mull, sent letters to the governors of all 50 states asking them to reconsider any laws on the books that called for divesting state funds from businesses interacting with Iran's economy, or laws that would deny contracts to companies that do business with Iran. More than two dozen states have such laws. Defenders of the state-level sanctions say they shouldn't be lifted because many of them were imposed not only because of Iran's nuclear program, but also its human-rights record, development of ballistic missiles and support for terrorism. "These state laws are an essential part of the non-nuclear sanctions architecture," said Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.