Renewed US Sanctions against Iran Targeting Ordinary People: Zarif

“In a desperate PSYOP to amplify the list of sanctioned Iranian entities—unintentionally also proving it is #TargetingOrdinaryIranians indiscriminately—the US designated a bank that was closed 6 years ago, and a ship that sank last year in a widely televised saga,” Zarif said in a message posted on his Twitter account late on Monday.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin took the podium at the State Department’s Foreign Press Center in Washington on Monday to unveil what the White House claims will force Iran to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs while rolling back Tehran’s influence in the Middle East.

Pompeo said the US had successfully persuaded over 20 countries to stop or dramatically reduce their oil imports from Iran, causing Tehran’s overall sales to suffer by more than 1 million barrels per day.

The campaign of pressure had also taken away over $2.5 billion in Iran’s oil revenue, he further claimed.

However, the top US diplomat admitted that Washington had failed to get the main buyers of Iranian oil to tag along and had to grant temporary waivers to China, India, South Korea, Turkey, Italy, Greece, Japan and Taiwan.

On Friday, the US administration agreed to allow the eight countries to continue purchasing Iran’s crude oil after Washington’s sanctions on Tehran take place.

Mnuchin also addressed reporters on Monday, saying that the US Treasury’s “largest ever single-day action” against Iran covers 50 Iranian banks and subsidiaries, more than 200 persons and vessels in its shipping sector, and the country’s national airline, Iran Air, and more than 65 of its aircraft.

According to Mnuchin, new sanctions also put nearly 250 persons and associated blocked property on the list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN List).