Pezeshkian: Enemy mistaken to think Iran will succumb to sanctions
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Saturday shrugged off new US sanctions targeting Iran, saying, “The enemy thinks that we will starve to death due to the sanctions but this is not the case.”
Addressing a ceremony held to inaugurate a number of industrial and tourism projects in the southeastern city of Sirjan in Kerman Province, Pezeshkian said that the country maintains a great potential to stand atop other states in the region.
The Iranian president said progress would not take place by relying on others and underlined that Iran does not lack anything to become the best country in West Asia.
“Today, we lack nothing from the countries in the region; we can be the best country in the region; we have very high capacities, provided that the views of all officials change and we are able to change the status quo,” the Iranian president said.
The president’s remarks came a day after Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said that talks with the US would not solve the country’s problems, stressing that such negotiations are “not smart, wise, or honorable.”
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran that includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero.
The move brings back the tough US policy on Iran that Trump practiced throughout his first term.
During his first term in office in 2018, the US president pulled his country out of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with world powers and illegally reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.
As the first measure after reimposing the maximum pressure campaign, the US Department of the Treasury on Thursday announced financial bans on an international network “facilitating the shipment of millions of barrels of Iranian crude oil worth hundreds of millions of dollars” to China.
The department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned more than a dozen people and companies in China, India and the United Arab Emirates. The targets include Iranian and Indian citizens, crew management firms and a collection of ships.