Iran’s President: US Sanctions Crime against Humanity

"The United States' current actions against the Iranian nation are not just war and sanction, but crime against humanity," the president said in a Tuesday session of Administrative Council of West Azarbaijan Province.

"What the United States is doing today is not war and sanction, but crime against humanity because they are stopping our medicine and foodstuff purchases and preventing patients' travel," the president’s official website quoted him as saying.

"Today, when the greatest imperialist power in the world, which is the United States, is doing its best against us, the Islamic Republic of Iran is the symbol of religion, dignity and independence against the power that is the symbol of blasphemy," he stated.

Rouhani added, "The Americans have repeatedly failed on the same path, but they are doing it again, and they will regret this unwise action against a great, free nation".

The Americans could choose another path, the president said, adding, "They could announce that foodstuff, medicine and people's needs are exempt from sanctions."

"America wants to stand against a nation with all its power and pressure it can use. Today, the US is not against a government, but against 82 million Iranians," Rouhani deplored.

"In my last visit to New York, a well-known world leader told me that in his earlier meeting with the US president, he had told him not to help Iran for just three months, and there would be no Islamic Republic. In that meeting, I told him to tell that man that Iran is more united and integrated than any other time," he said. "You, people like you, and your government in the White House will come and go, but the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Iranian nation will be everlasting in history."

"One of their officials said that they would be in Tehran on that year's Christmas. Somewhere else, they said that the Islamic Republic of Iran would not see the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. I told them to write down the date and see where Iran will be after that time," the president went on to say.

He added, "They have miscalculations and childish thoughts in their heads, which make problems for the Iranian nation, but will leave a bad record of them in history."

A couple of groups have misled the US and the White House, Rouhani said. "One group is the extremists inside the US, and the second group is the Zionists, whose words and sentences we can distinguish."

"Speeches they make against Iran are written by Zionists word by word. Extremists, Zionists and reactionaries in the region have been thinking for 40 years about the day the Islamic Republic of Iran fails, considering Iran as a great threat to their countries and governments," he deplored.

"They had several plans to make us angry so that we would withdraw from the JCPOA, violating the 7-party agreement, but they did not succeed," he stressed. "They (Americans) were working on the other 6 countries, especially the Europeans, to leave the deal all together, but they could not get anyone to agree, and eventually the US had no choice but to exit the deal alone."

"America wanted to unite everyone in tearing off the JCPOA, but they did not succeed… It was for the first time that the United Nations and The Hague issued a verdict against the US sanctions, warning them not to implement them," he added.

"Despite all hardships, the Iranian nation are standing strong against the enemies, defending our political, geographical and legal borders," the president emphasized.

"The White House cannot defeat the Iranian nation; they would if they were facing a group, but they are facing the entire Iranian nation," he concluded.