Iran Imposes Retaliatory Sanctions against US Entities

In a statement on Thursday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry slammed the US Treasury Department’s move to announce new sanctions on Iran as an attempt to “downplay the positive outcomes” of the Washington government’s measure to continue to waive anti-Iran sanctions as required by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear agreement between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).

In dual actions on Wednesday, the US administration extended wide sanctions relief for Iran under the JCPOA, but also imposed penalties on Iranian and Chinese figures for what it called supports for Tehran’s ballistic missile program.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran condemns the US government’s bad will (and) attempts to reduce the positive impacts of carrying out its (US) JCPOA-required commitments by adding legal and natural personalities to its (US) list of foreign, unilateral and illegal sanctions, and considers that as unacceptable and in breach of the international law,” the statement added.

The Foreign Ministry also reiterated that Iran’s inalienable right to boost its defense capabilities for protecting its sovereignty and territorial integrity or to press ahead with its missile program have nothing to do with its international commitments and with the UN Resolution 2231.

Resolution 2231, passed by the 15-memebr United Nations Security Council in July 2015, has endorsed the 159-page JCPOA. The resolution calls upon Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.”

Iran maintains that none of its missiles have been designed to be capable of carrying nuclear warheads, because nuclear weapons have basically no place in the Islamic Republic’s defense doctrine.

Elsewhere in the statement, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said it came up with a plan to retaliate the new US sanctions by adding nine American individuals and companies to the list of the “legal and natural individuals under Iran sanctions.”

According to the statement, the nine entities “have a proven record of brazen violation of human rights and international humanitarian law by engagement or direct and indirect aid and abet in the Zionist regime’s anti-human crimes in the occupied Palestine or in that regime’s terrorist measures, of involvement or aid and abet in sponsoring Takfiri terrorism and suppression of people of the (Middle East) region, or of effective engagement in measures against the Islamic Republic of Iran’s national security.”

The US Treasury Department announced in its Wednesday statement that Washington has sanctioned two Iranian defense officials, an Iranian company and members of a China-based network for the so-called supports for Iran’s ballistic missile program.