Iran

Iran's legacy inside Syria over the course of the war, but also predating that, is very negative from the Syrian point of view. And so there is very little appetite for re-engagement with Iran, given this dark and stained, tarnished history of engagement."

It’s not so much about how much money these people have in the UK — probably not enough to make that a pressure point — but what it does do is name and shame them...That makes people think twice before working with these individuals because they are now in the spotlight and in the UK’s crosshairs.”

These three countries have been working together on a number of sanctions filed. They rail against the fact that the United States, the EU, the UK are weaponising, in their view, the financial systems, the global trading system, in order to coerce Iran when it comes to its nuclear programme, Russia when it comes to its full scale invasion of Ukraine, China for supporting both of them. So there is this closer cooperation between these countries to try and develop systems and work arounds that avoid this financial pressure..."