Already tense relations between Tehran and Washington went into a tailspin last week, after President Trump slapped the Islamic Republic with new sanctions and threatened the country with “obliteration” after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards shot down a US spy drone they said was operating in Iranian airspace.
The US’ new sanctions against Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, eight members of the Revolutionary Guards and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are “totally useless” and “futile,” Iranian parliament National Security & Foreign Policy Commission chairman Mojtaba Zonnour has said.
“They have sanctioned Foreign Minister Zarif, which is, according to international laws, impossible,” Zonnour said, as cited by Mehr News. “We will continue our diplomacy,” he added.
“The Leader of the Islamic Revolution is also sanctioned, while he has not travelled to foreign countries after his Presidency and has no banking account,” the lawmaker added, noting that the measures intended to cut off Khamenei’s “access to financial instruments” were thus completely “futile.”
As for the restrictions against the Revolutionary Guards, which the US previously classified as a ‘terrorist group’, Zonnour highlighted that the organisation has already been sanctioned repeatedly, saying that “imposing sanctions on IRGC commanders once again is totally useless.”
Zonnour’s remarks followed the official announcement by the European Union late Friday that the European financial settlement mechanism known as INSTEX aimed at bypassing the tough US sanctions against Iran had become operational, with Iran’s envoy on the nuclear deal soon confirming that the system was working and transactions are already taking place.
“France, Germany and the United Kingdom informed participants that INSTEX had been made operational and available to all EU Member States and that the first transactions are being processed,” the EU said in a statement.
Together with the instrument, which some EU countries are joining as shareholders, Iran has set up a legal entity to facilitate trade with Europe, the statement said.
INSTEX, which stands for ‘Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges’, is a payments system allowing countries and companies to get around US Iran-related secondary sanctions by allowing for goods and services to be exchanged without the direct transfer of money between Iranian and EU companies. Instead, the mechanism promises to coordinate import and export payments by creating a virtual ledger to offset balances. The mechanism is expected to focus first and foremost on medical goods, agriculture and pharmaceuticals, items which were also targeted as part of the Trump administration’s policy of “maximum pressure.”
US officials had previously dismissed INSTEX, saying the mechanism was not commercially viable. Earlier this week, US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook said he was “very doubtful” that the system would even “be able to actually conduct transactions.”
On Friday, Hook warned that Iran’s oil sector would continue to be sanctioned, saying that no waivers to sanctions had been put in place and that the US would “sanction any illicit purchases of Iranian crude oil.” China reportedly defied the US warning, with an Iranian oil tanker docking at a chemical complex outside Beijing earlier in the week, with more tankers expected to make their way to the country in the coming weeks. China’s foreign ministry said Friday that it “rejects” the US policy of unilateral sanctions and would “not support US policy on bringing Iran’s oil exports to zero.”
Commentary by The Iranian
The definition of a rogue state? ??
