Iran: US sanctions against FM Zarif would ‘block’ diplomacy

“Iran responds to diplomacy with diplomacy and to pressure with resistance,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi.

By World Israel News Staff 

The Iranian Vice President for Parliamentary Affairs Hossein Ali Amiri warned that U.S. sanctions against the country’s foreign minister “would block the road to diplomacy and further lay bare the falsehood of Washington’s calls for negotiations with Tehran,” the Tasnim news agency reported over the weekend.

Amiri claimed that because Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, is in charge of the country’s diplomatic contacts and foreign policy, Washington cannot expect to hold talks with Tehran if it imposes sanctions on Zarif.

“Amiri also said that the U.S. has stood against the Islamic community’s public opinion by blacklisting the office of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei” Tasnim reported, adding that “Iranian leadership [serves] not only a political and administrative  [role] but also [operates as] a religious and spiritual authority whose followers are not confined to the Iranian borders alone.”

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing “symbolic” sanctions against Ayatollah Khamenei and a number of ranking military commanders, with sanctions expected against Zarif in the coming days.

“The Trump administration is expected to sanction Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, any day now, and the announcement could offer a rare glimpse into the internal dealings of the country’s most traveled official,” says the Washington Examiner.

“Declassified intelligence could give the world its first glimpse into Zarif’s financial connections in Iran, including any ties to hard-line elements within the government,” writes Russ Read in the Examiner.

“Iran responds to diplomacy with diplomacy and to pressure with resistance,” Tasnim quoted Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi as saying on Saturday.

“Thus far we have not seen anything other than illegal sanctions and economic war and terrorism from the U.S. government to respond,” he reportedly added.

Tasnim also noted that the U.S. has already outlawed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “whose Aerospace Force units shot down an American drone that intruded into the airspace of Iran on June 20.”