The U.S. shouldn’t count on staying out of harm’s way, according to Iran’s foreign minister.
Mohammad Javad Zarif said the U.S. “cannot expect to stay safe” because of its alleged “economic war” against Iran, which started after the Trump administration withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and reimposed harsh sanctions on the Islamic Republic last year.
“Mr. Trump himself has announced that the U.S. has launched an economic war against Iran,” Zarif said Monday during a press conference with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. “The only solution for reducing tensions in this region is stopping that economic war.”
“Whoever starts a war with us will not be the one who finishes it,” he said.
The 2015 Iran nuclear deal, formally the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, put restraints on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from crippling sanctions.
But the Trump administration announced last May that it was pulling out of the deal, and that sanctions against Iran would be reinstated. In particular, Iran’s oil exports have suffered from the sanctions.
The Trump administration on Friday imposed sanctions targeting Iran’s largest petrochemical holding group, the Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company. The sanctions serve as a “warning that we will continue to target holding groups and companies in the petrochemical sector and elsewhere that provide financial lifelines” to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
Meanwhile, Maas said Monday that Germany and other European countries would seek to rescue the deal, but cast doubt on how much they could do.
“We won’t be able to do miracles, but we are trying as best as we can to do prevent its failure,” Maas said.
