Speaking in his weekly press briefing on Monday, Ghasemi shrugged off the re-imposition of US sanctions on Iran, saying it’s nothing new and that the country has gone through a wider range of sanctions in the past 40 years. "Since US withdrawal from JCPOA, fresh round of sanctions has begun which indicates the US officials', espeacially Trump's, addiction to sanctions; therefore it is really hard for them to quit."
He added that Iranians “have experienced more extensive sanctions” and that they are “not a new issue.”
He also called the sanctions that went into effect on Monday “fruitless” and part of the US propaganda and psychological war against Iran.
Ghasemi noted that the sanctions would backfire and work against the United States and that “many countries from Europe to Russia and China have opposed the sanctions.”
Pointing to the Mechanism Of EU's Special Purpose Vehicle, Ghasemi said "we are in touch with the European Union and 4+1; the financial and monetary mechanisms, as you know, are complicated and time-consuming."
In this mechanism, the other sides should work on some of the conditions that Iran had already set up, which I hope will be operational as soon as possible, he added.
On the recent allegations of Denmark against Iranian government over a plot to assassinate an Iranian Arab opposition figure on its soil, Ghasemi said "we condemn such actions, and we regard it as part of enemies' conspiracies to disrupt the relations between Europe and Iran. Some European countries announced that they would not pursue US policies and continue to cooperate with Iran."
Pointig to the Guardian Council's rejection of the bill on Iran’s accession to the convention against the funding of terrorism (CFT), Ghasemi said "we believe this convention should be approved because it has many profits for the country and the nation, and without this mechanism we can face many problems."
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