New Sanctions Extension of Trump’s Failed Policies

A senior diplomat described new American sanctions on Iran the extension of Washington’s failed policies on Tehran. 
“The Islamic Republic considers the US new sanctioning efforts to be the continuation of [former US president Donald] Trump’s filed maximum pressure policy,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Thursday, ISNA reported. 
The remarks came after the US Treasury Department placed six Iranian persons and one institution on its sanctions list under the pretext that they tried to influence the 2020 US presidential elections.
“These are efforts [that are make] out of desperation,” he said, denouncing the sanctions an “illegitimate” bid on the part of a country that, itself, has a longstanding record of meddling in other nations’ internal affairs.
Khatibzadeh separately condemned remarks made by his French counterpart Anne-Claire Legendre, through which she had called on the International Atomic Energy Agency to send a “strong message” to Iran and urged Tehran return to its nuclear obligations “without delay”.
The French official’s comments earlier in the day were in response to Iran’s remedial nuclear measures that the country has adopted in retaliation for other parties’ failure to meet commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
Iran initiated the countermeasures in 2019, after observing a year of strategic patience in the face of the US withdrawal from the deal, its reimposition of the sanctions that the agreement had lifted, and others, including France’s refusal to object to the sanctions.
Khatibzadeh referred to the French official’s remarks as a bid to “influence the IAEA’s attitude,” saying such meddlesome comments only served to “tarnish the agency’ reputation as a technical and specialist UN organization.”
The Iranian official also commented on an anti-Iran statement issued on Thursday following a meeting in the Saudi capital Riyadh between the US point man on Iran, Robert Malley, European envoys, and officials from the (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council.
The statement repeated Iranophobic remarks concerning the Islamic Republic’s nuclear work and its regional influence.