Iran Rebuffs Latest U.S. Sanctions against Its Banks as ‘Cruel’ and ‘Inhumane’

Oct. 10, 2020 (EIRNS)—Iran has further responded to the new U.S. sanctions announced by the U.S. Treasury Department on Oct. 8 with very harsh language. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, during a meeting with the governor of Iran’s central bank, called the sanctions “cruel” and “inhumane,” but noted that the new move by Washington will fail to crush the Iranian nation’s resistance amid the COVID-19 crisis, reported Tasnim. The move by the U.S. government to sanction the country’s financial institutions is for domestic propaganda and political purposes, he added.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said in a message that Iran will not be intimidated by U.S. bullying rhetoric. “The Iranian people aren’t intimidated by the bullying rhetoric of the failing & lawless U.S. regime,” Khatibzadeh wrote in his Twitter account on Saturday. “Our people leave no stone unturned in defending Iran’s dignity,” he added. “WE will choose response to U.S. crimes—including sadistic sanctions & criminal assassination of ISIS #1 enemy Gen Soleimani,”

Iran’s envoy to UN organizations in Vienna Kazem Gharibabadi charged today that the U.S. is putting Iranian lives at risk with the new sanctions. “They claim, on the one hand, that the imports of food and medicine are not under sanctions, but on the other hand, they block the existing channels for paying the costs of such import items,” Gharibabadi wrote on his Instagram page. He said that Europe holds a heavy duty in this regard if it is honest in its claim of support for human rights. In reference to the U.S. administration’s intention to keep on the maximum pressure policy until Iran returns to the negotiating table, Gharibabadi said that Washington must have come to know that this approach goes nowhere.