Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif speaks during the annual Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany February 17, 2019. (photo credit: ANDREAS GEBERT/REUTERS)
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Iran accused the Trump administration of engaging in economic terrorism against its people as it continued to engage in a war of words with Washington over its nuclear program.
“Our people are also subjected the most brutal form of economic terrorism, deliberately targeting innocent civilians to achieve illegitimate political objectives,” Iran’s Foreign Miniser Javed Zarif said in New York as he addressed a high level segment of the UN’s Economic and Social Council.
The US has imposed crippling sanctions on Iran designed to force Tehran back to the bargaining table to renegotiate the 2015 Iran deal which the Trump administration existed last year. The other five world powers, including Great Britain, who are signatories to the deal have remained committed to the agreement.
The US’s “unlawful extraterritorial” sanctions are a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231” and represent the great threat to the development goals of Tehran and its neighbors, Zarif told the UN. Israel’s Environmental Minister Ze’ev Elkin spoke prior to Zarif’s speech.
Just one day earlier the US had hinted that Iran might be willing to returning to the negotiating table, an idea which Tehran immediately disavowed.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told KCMO Radio that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had to decide whether the country would be the “largest state sponsor of terror” or whether it would become a “normal country and rejoin the community of nations.”
The US is committed to sitting down with Iran without preconditions.
“If they do, everything will be great, and if not, we’ll head down a different path,” Pompeo said.
Britain is sending its HMS Kent warship to the Gulf to protect its interests and ensure freedom of navigation after tensions with Iran, the British Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday, after earlier saying that the mission was routine.
Iran has vowed to respond to what it calls Britain’s “piracy” over the seizure of an Iranian oil tanker in Gibraltar.
“We remain focused on ensuring de-escalation in the region and will act appropriately to protect UK interests and ensure freedom of navigation,” the ministry said.
With regard to the Strait of Hormuz, Pompeo said on the Hugh Hewitt Show, that the “President’s made pretty clear that this is an international obligation to keep these waterways.”
He added that, “The Iranians’ effort to deny transit for commercial vessels, crude oil vessels, and other vessels is something that – frankly, it’s consistent with 40 years of their history.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
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