Iranian officials react to the new American sanctions

Tabnak – In a move widely seen as being against all international norms and standards, the US administration has imposed sanctions on Iran’s Supreme Leader, threatening to target the country’s foreign minister as well. High-ranking Iranian officials stress that the new bans shows Washington’s unwillingness to pursue the path of diplomacy.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani says the fresh American sanctions targeting the country’s senior officials prove that Washington is lying about seeking to hold talks with Tehran.

Speaking on Tuesday, Rouhani raised questions about the logic behind US President Donald Trump’s executive order imposing bans on Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, his office and eight senior commanders of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

Rouhani also mocked a US decision to “seize assets of” Ayatollah Khamenei as part the sanctions order, saying the Leader only owns “a Hosseiniyeh (Shia place of worship) and a simple house.

“Iran’s Leader is not like those of other countries, who have billions in an account abroad so you can sanction it, seize it or block it,” said Rouhani. “To sanction him for what? Not to travel to America?”

He added that the new sanctions — which will also target Zarif — prove the US was “lying” about the offer of talks with Tehran, which the White House has repeatedly put forwards over the past months in parallel with its pressure campaign and stepped-up military moves against the Islamic Republic.

Meanwhile and in a post on his Twitter account on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said US President Donald Trump’s “desperate” administration was killing the mechanisms for maintaining global peace by slapping bans on Iran.

“Imposing futile sanctions on Leader of the Islamic Revolution (Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei) and the commander of the country's diplomacy (Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif) means the permanent closure of the path of diplomacy with the desperate US government,” he said.

“Trump’s administration is destroying all the established international mechanisms for maintaining world peace and security," he added.

Iran's ambassador to the UN was another official to react to the new American move, asserting that the United States’ new sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic’s topmost authorities still serves to reflect Washington’s disrespect for the international law.

“The US’s decision today to impose more sanctions against Iran is another indication that American does not attach any respect to the international laws and the prevailing international opinion,” Majid Takht-e Ravanchi said at the world body’s headquarters in New York on Monday.

On Monday, Trump signed an executive order imposing sanctions on Ayatollah Khamenei, his office and eight senior commanders of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

He said the new “hard-hitting” sanctions will deny access to “key financial resources and support” for the Leader, his office and those “closely affiliated” with him. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that Iran’s top diplomat would also face sanctions “later this week.”