President Hassan Rouhani has condemned US sanctions which have obstructed Iran’s access to medicines amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying the White House knows nothing about humanity.
Speaking during a meeting of the national task force for fighting the coronavirus on Saturday, Rouhani slammed Washington for blocking a request by the Iranian government for a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to combat the deadly outbreak.
“We requested a $5 billion loan from the IMF and all members agreed, but America does not allow us to get the loan for medicines and treatment,” he said. “They have distanced from humanity as far as this. The White House today has no sense of humanity. If it had a sense of humanity, it wouldn’t have done this,” he said.
The Iranian president also lashed out at what he called “friendly countries” that have frozen Iran’s money in their banks.
“We have countries that are also our friends and our money is in their bank, [but] they have locked it three times and are not willing to release our money for our needs. They say that the Americans have pressured” them against unfreezing Iran’s money and that they had retreated in the face of the US oppression, Rouhani said.
Such a crime is unprecedented in history, with a country not being able to draw off its money deposited in a bank in a bid to cover its people’s health needs, he underlined.
The Americans, he added, are angry about how the Iranian government is managing the country, so they are mounting their pressure despite the country’s fight against the highly contagious virus.
Iran has been contending with the deadliest pandemic the world has seen in many decades amid US sanctions, which have seriously hampered efforts to contain the outbreak.
More than 397,801 Iranians have been infected with COVID-19 in Iran. More than 22,913 have died, while 342,539 have recovered.
