'Addicted to Sanctions': Iran Will Not Bow to US Pressure – Foreign Minister
Faced with unilateral US sanctions, Iran will not bow to pressure and will solve all problems “turning pressures into an increase in national production and non-oil exports,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said.
Zarif, while addressing a meeting of private sector representatives and Iranian ambassadors, said that addicted as the United States is to using sanctions “on the majority of countries” the Iranian people will manage to leave the current “critical” stage behind with national unity, Press TV wrote.
“The US president and his predecessors have sanctioned us for some 40 years, but with God's grace and the Iranian people's efforts, we have made progress, achieved dignity day by day and endured difficulties, Zarif emphasized.
"We believe the world has come to the conclusion that the United States needs to quit its addiction to sanctions," he added.
On May 8, President Donald Trump said the US was walking away from the 2015 nuclear agreement with Tehran and promised to impose the “highest level” of sanctions on the country’s energy petrochemical and financial sectors despite objections from Europe as well as Russia and China — the other parties to the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Nevertheless, Europe, Russia and China have decided to explore ways to maintain the JCPOA and their trade ties with Iran.
Not only will Washington re-impose sanctions on Iran, but it will also slap secondary sanctions on countries that continue doing business with Tehran.
Some of these secondary sanctions are to kick in following a 90-day wind-down period ending in August and the rest in November.
Late last month, a senior US State Department official said that countries buying Iranian oil should bring down to zero their Iranian crude imports by the time Washington re-imposes sanctions on Tehran on November 4.
When asked about US threats to stop Iran's oil exports, a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, warned that the Islamic Republic would make “credible” reciprocal threats.
Earlier, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani lashed out at Washington’s threat to choke off Iran's oil exports, saying the US would never be able to carry out such a threat.
- Source : Sputnik News
