{"id":76243,"date":"2019-08-01T14:31:52","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T19:31:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/persian-heritage.com\/wordpress\/?p=76243"},"modified":"2019-08-01T14:31:52","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T19:31:52","slug":"iran-responds-to-us-sanctions-on-foreign-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2019\/08\/01\/iran-responds-to-us-sanctions-on-foreign-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran Responds to US Sanctions on Foreign Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"VOA – WHITE HOUSE – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday called the move by the United States to sanction Iran’s foreign minister “childish.” In a televised speech, Rouhani said the United States claims to want to negotiate with Iran without any preconditions, “and then they sanction the foreign minister.” “This is obviously a highly unusual action,” a senior Trump administration official acknowledged when discussing the U.S. action against Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. The executive order accuses Zarif of acting or purporting to act on behalf of his country\u2019s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was recently added to the U.S. Treasury Department\u2019s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List. \u201cAnd today, President [Donald] Trump decided enough is enough,\u201d a senior U.S. official told reporters on a background briefing conference call. \u201cWe will continue to build on our maximum pressure campaign until Iran abandons its reckless foreign policy that threatens the United States and our allies.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The United States \u201cis sending a clear message to the Iranian regime that its recent behavior is completely unacceptable,\u201d Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. \u201cAt the same time, the Iranian regime denies Iranian citizens\u2019 access to social media, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif spreads the regime\u2019s propaganda and disinformation around the world through these mediums.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the action is \u201canother step toward denying the Iranian regime the resources to enable terror and oppress the Iranian people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zarif quickly responded, saying the U.S. action will have no effect on him or his family as they have no property or interests outside of Iran.<\/p>\n

“Thank you for considering me such a huge threat to your agenda,” Zarif wrote on Twitter.<\/p>\n

Such sanctions generally prohibit a designated person from visiting or even transiting the United States.<\/p>\n

The State Department \u201cwill evaluate specific circumstances related to this designation on a case-by-case basis, consistent with existing laws and obligations and this includes the United Nations Headquarters Agreements,\u201d a senior administration official told reporters.<\/p>\n

Zarif would be immune from arrest while on official travel to and from the U.N. in New York City, the official added.<\/p>\n

U.S. officials made clear Wednesday they no longer consider Zarif of any value for diplomacy. The previous administration of Barack Obama dealt with him to work out a multinational nuclear deal. But the Trump administration a year ago withdrew from the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not consider him to be our primary point of contact,\u201d a U.S. official in the briefing said to reporters. \u201cIf we do have an official contact with Iran, we would want to have contact with somebody who\u2019s a significant decision-maker.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its announcement, the Treasury Department\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control accuses Zarif of overseeing a ministry that coordinates with Iran\u2019s \u201cmost nefarious state entities,\u201d including the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force and of involvement with efforts to influence elections and facilitating payments to a foreign judiciary official for the release of two IRGC-Quds Force operatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA – WHITE HOUSE – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday called the move by the United States to sanction Iran’s foreign minister “childish.” In a televised speech, Rouhani said the United States claims to want to negotiate with Iran without any preconditions, “and then they sanction the foreign minister.” “This is obviously a highly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}