Over 70 US Groups Urge Trump to End Iran Sanctions amid COVID-19 Crisis

The "urgent appeal" came in the form of an open letter sent by the groups to Trump, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin calling for curtailing the sanctions regime for the duration of the pandemic, Common Dreams reported. 

Entitled "Lift Sanctions, Save Lives," the initiative is aimed at ensuring the economic warfare by the US claims as few lives as possible as the nations fight off the health crisis.

"Denying people access to lifesaving resources now represents a risk to the entire world," said Daniel Jasper of the American Friends Service Committee, a signatory to the letter. "The US must rethink its approach to sanctions."

The letter puts forth a framework for universal safeguards that include six specific categories. These include aid that is directly related to containing and providing treatment for COVID-19  (such as testing kits, personal protective equipment, ventilators, etc.). The letter also calls for safeguarding aid needed to address simultaneous challenges exacerbated by the pandemic, such as providing adequate water supply, food security, and urgent health services for other infectious diseases.

"Sanctions kill innocents indiscriminately just like bombs," said Peace Action senior policy director Paul Kawika Martin. "Historically, this type of economic warfare fails to positively affect the behavior of governments. During this pandemic crisis, the US needs to remove all barriers, like sanctions, so countries can counteract COVID-19."

The letter also emphasizes the risks of "over-compliance" on the part of companies and financial institutions overly cautious in the face of sanctions. That can lead to more pain and suffering, said CodePink Latin America Campaign coordinator Teri Mattson.

"Banks often block purchases for these items out of fear of running afoul of sanctions, in what is known as over-compliance," said Mattson. "Over-compliance is one of the many ways that innocent civilians end up being harmed by sanctions regimes."

Speaking to the US-based The Nation magazine in a report published on Thursday, US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who serves on the Congress’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said that the US sanctions are “only harming innocent civilians who bear the brunt of this crisis”.

“Keeping sanctions in place on Iran during a global pandemic is unconscionable,” she said.

“Civilians are unable to receive life-saving medicine and humanitarian supplies due to the US-placed sanctions,” she added.

According to the latest numbers released by Iran’s Health Ministry on Friday, the death toll from the new coronavirus rose by 93 to reach a total of 5,574.

Health Ministry spokesman Kianoosh Jahanpoor said the total number of people diagnosed with the disease is 88,194, of whom 3,121 are in critical condition.