US Terrorism Targeting Entire Iranian Nation - Rouhani

By Staff, Agencies

President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Hassan Rouhani said the US terrorist measures against his country actually target the entire nation to make Iranians give in to US demands.

Addressing a gathering of foreign ambassadors in Tehran on Monday, Rouhani said, “Today, we are faced with oppressive sanctions, a terrorist measure by the United States against the entire Iranian nation. Nobody has any doubt that the US’ maximum pressure and sanctions take aim at each and every one of our people.”

Noting that the US sanctions against Iran have no precedent in history, Rouhani said, “They hoped that this maximum pressure would first bring [Iran's] statesmen to their knees and if they resisted, people would bend the knee. Both assumptions were erroneous; neither our people submitted to this pressure, nor our officials and statesmen.”

Rouhani added that those who are familiar with the region and Iran's history, culture and civilization know that “a great nation will never yield to bullying, unjust and wrong remarks as well as undue pressures.”

The US has been mounting its pressure on the Islamic Republic over the past 20 months on a daily basis, he said, adding that all Iran's economic indexes over the past eight months show that the country has managed to overcome the sanctions and that the Americans have been totally wrong in their calculations.

Tensions have been running high between Iran and the United States since May 2018, when US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew his country from the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA], and unleashed the “toughest ever” sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

In response, Tehran has so far rowed back on its nuclear commitments five times in compliance with Articles 26 and 36 of the JCPOA, but stressed that its retaliatory measures will be reversible as soon as Europe finds practical ways to save the deal.