DUBAI: Iran called on Saturday for European assurances of support in the face of Washington’s intent to reimpose sanctions on vital Iranian oil sales to force Tehran to curb its nuclear, missile and regional activities. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif spoke by telephone with the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, and his counterparts from Germany, Sweden and Denmark about European measures to counter the US sanctions, the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported.
“Mogherini and the European ministers... highlighted the importance of the finance ministers’ commitment to Europe’s financial mechanism to save the Iran nuclear deal and said the mechanism will be operational in the coming days,” IRNA said.
Washington will reapply far-reaching sanctions on Iran’s petroleum and banking sectors starting on Monday.
Diplomats told this agency last week that the new EU mechanism to facilitate payments for Iranian exports should be legally in place by November 4, when the next phase of US sanctions hit, but
will not be operational until early next year.
The EU, France, Germany and Britain, said in a joint statement on Friday they regretted US President Donald Trump’s decision to restore sanctions on Iran, the world’s No 3 oil exporter.
“Our aim is to protect European economic actors who have legitimate commercial exchanges with Iran, in line with European legislation and the United Nations’ Security Council resolution 2231,” Mogherini and the foreign ministers and finance ministers of the three countries said in their statement.
The three biggest European powers are co-signatories, along with Russia and China, to an international 2015 deal with Iran that reined in its nuclear work in exchange for the lifting of most international sanctions on Tehran.
With the sanctions clampdown, Trump is seeking to push Iran into stricter curbs on its nuclear programme and a halt to its missile development activity.
Trump denounced the nuclear deal, signed before he took office, as flawed in Iran’s favour and withdrew Washington from the pact in May.
Iranian state television reported that the Islamic Republic had started production of the locally-designed Kowsar fighter plane for use in its air force.
Meanwhile, Iran’s top leader said on Saturday that Trump’s policies face opposition across the world as Washington prepared to reimpose sanctions on Iran’s vital oil-exporting and financial sectors, state television reported.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that President Donald Trump has “disgraced” US prestige and would be the ultimate loser from renewing sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
“This new US president... has disgraced the remnant of America’s prestige and that of liberal democracy. America’s hard power, that is to say their economic and military power, is declining too,” he said on his Persian Twitter account, quoting a speech in Tehran.
Khamenei dismissed the renewed US sanctions — including an oil embargo — that take effect on Monday.
“The challenge between the US and Iran has lasted for 40 years so far and the US has made various efforts against us: military, economic and media warfare,” he said.
“There’s a key fact here: in this 40-year challenge, the defeated is the US and the victorious is the Islamic Republic.”
— Reuters/AFP
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