By imposing sanction against Iran’s foreign minister, the US once again proved it is lying about seeking negotiation with Tehran, Rouhani said in an address to a Tuesday meeting in Tehran.
He also pointed to the US bans on the Leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, and said, “The Leader’s assets include a prayer site and a simple house. Our leaders are not like leaders of other countries who have billions [of dollars, etc.] in their foreign bank accounts.”
He said the US must be out of its mind because it says it wants to ban Iran’s Leader from travelling to the United States.
“It is us who won’t let you in [our country], now you are saying that you won’t let us in?” he said.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Rouhani took a swipe at the US for unilaterally withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
He said Washington claimed the JCPOA was a bad agreement and pulled out of it accordingly, and now, is angry that Iran is scaling back its commitments under the deal.
Rouhani further dismissed US sanctions on Iran as a crime against humanity.
“The White House’s new measures [against Iran] are a sign of their desperation and confusion in dealing with Iran,” said the president.
He said the White House suffers from “mental disability.”
President Rouhani also touched upon Iran shooting down a US spy drone days ago.
“From a military perspective, it is difficult to spot a drone because of its small size, special structural design, its aerodynamic shape and its color. Moreover, such drones fly at altitudes of more than 50,000 or 60,000 feet,” he said.
He hailed Iranian forces for immediately shooting down the unmanned aerial vehicle just minutes after violating the country’s airspace.
“Sometimes when a drone violates a country’s airspace, that country confronts the unmanned aerial vehicle after, let’s say, an hour. But sometimes you react right in the very early minutes after the drone violates the airspace,” he said.
He said the drone was shot down after ignoring Iran’s warnings.
“The U-S drone was coming in from the international waters when it entered the space above our territorial waters. It received warnings right after violating our airspace, but it took no heed of the warnings and continued violating the country’s airspace,” he said.
President Rouhani also praised Iranian military experts for having developed the air defense system used to bring down the American drone.
“[After ignoring Iran’s warnings] the drone was shot down immediately, using a domestically-developed system. If we had shot it down with, for example, the S-300 air defense system, that would be something ordinary. But we shot down the drone with an Iranian-made system, whose missile and radar were Iranian-made as well. It means, we spotted and locked the aircraft with an Iranian-made radar, and targeted it with an Iranian-made rocket. It is no mean feat,” he noted.
