Despite new sanctions looming, Iran shows no signs of bending to the US demands

Tabnak – By increasing pressures on Iran by the means of economic sanctions and diplomatic moves, the Unites States has been among the other things trying to change Iran’s policies in the region. Despite the new round of economic sanctions in sight, the Islamic Republic reiterates its determination to resist the US pressures.

In this vein, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi has reaffirmed the country's "logical and quite transparent" policies, saying the Islamic Republic would never change its approaches to regional developments under any administration in the United States.

Qassemi made the remark in an interview with ISNA published on Friday in response to "incorrect and unfounded" claims made by US President Donald Trump against Iran in an interview on Tuesday with four members of The Wall Street Journal’s White House team in the Oval Office.

In his interview, Trump claimed that Iran is "not the same country" since he took office and after he "terminated" the landmark nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries in 2015.

Qassemi dismissed the US president's claims and said, "It seems that Trump does not have necessary information about the conditions in the region, its history and characteristics of its peoples as well as the developments in the recent years."

"Iran is undoubtedly the same country with all its features. [It] is exactly the same country which has been before Trump's presidency without any change in its regional policies," he added.

In a related development, Iran’s ambassador to Britain slammed his US counterpart for seeking to scare British companies into ending trade ties with the Islamic Republic when Washington’s anti-Tehran sanctions return in place, saying this is sheer hypocrisy.

“Such threatening and bullying rhetoric on the part of a businessman, whose grandfather’s Johnson & Johnson (company) had been for years active in Iran even during the sanctions era, amounts to blatant hypocrisy,” Hamid Baeedinejad said on social media, according to Press TV.

Johnson had said in a tweet on October 22 that, “Companies have a choice: Do business with #Iran or with the US - you can’t do both. Sanctions come into effect Nov 4.”

The Iranian envoy to London, however, replied, “It is not companies that must choose between the US and Iran; it is that the US can either abandon the JCPOA and violate international law--continuing to lose credibility--or return to the accord and uphold an international agreement, which itself has signed.”

The US president announced in May that Washington was pulling out of the nuclear agreement, which lifted nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran in exchange for restrictions on Tehran's nuclear program.

A first round of American sanctions took effect in August, targeting Iran's access to the US dollar, metals trading, coal, industrial software, and auto sector. A second round, forthcoming on November 4, will be targeting Iran's energy sector and financial transactions.