Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Wednesday blasted the United States’ latest economic sanctions against his country, saying they display a disregard for the human rights of all Iranians, Reuters reported.
“Latest US sanctions violate 2 ICJ orders: to not impede humanitarian trade & to not aggravate the dispute. Utter disregard for rule of law & human rights of an entire people. US outlaw regime’s hostility toward Iranians heightened by addiction to sanctions,” Zarif said in a Twitter post, in a reference to the International Court of Justice.
“US addiction to sanctions is out of control,” he added.
His comments came a day after the US Treasury sanctioned two Iranian banks and a handful of companies it says are linked to Iran’s Basij militia.
The sanctions are the latest to have been imposed by Washington on Tehran since President Donald Trump withdrew in May from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
In August, Trump signed an executive order officially reinstating US sanctions against Iran. Additional US sanctions targeting Iran's oil and shipping industries will go into effect on November 4.
Two weeks ago, the US tore up a 1955 "Treaty of Amity" between Washington and Tehran after the ICJ ordered the United States to ease sanctions that were reimposed on Iran by Trump after he pulled out of the 2015 deal.
In a separate case, Iran filed a complaint with the ICJ in June of 2016 over the US Supreme Court’s ruling that nearly $2 billion in assets frozen in the United States will be recovered as compensation to families of victims of terrorist attacks linked to the Islamic Republic, claiming the ruling breached the same 1955 treaty.
The United States last week accused Tehran of having "unclean hands" and said Iran's "support for international terrorism", including bombings and airline hijackings, should rule out its case.