"Your maximum pressure is neutralized by our maximum resilience, discretion, and hope," Mousavi tweeted on Saturday.
"We will pass these difficult stage with honor as we have in the past four decades, until you learn to speak respectfully with the Iranian nation and return to your commitments," he added.
In her tweet on Friday, the US State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus wrote "The U.S. is increasing maximum pressure on the Iranian regime by targeting Iran’s construction sector."
"It’s controlled by the IRGC—a terrorist organization," she claimed, adding, "Anyone who sells, supplies, or transfers covered materials to Iran’s construction sector will face mandatory sanctions."
The US imposed Thursday (October 31) new sanctions on Iran, targeting the construction sector, despite Washington's announcement a week ago that it had created a new mechanism to facilitate"permissible trade" with Tehran.
The US State Department issued a fact sheet, singling out the sale of software used for industrial purposes, raw and semi-finished metals, graphite and coal used in Iran's construction sector as targets for the new sanctions.
The State Department said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had determined Iran's construction sector was controlled directly or indirectly by Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reacted to the new sanctions, tweeting on Friday that “Subjecting construction workers to #EconomicTerrorism only manifests maximum failure of "maximum pressure”. US can sanction every man, woman & child but Iranians will never submit to bullying. Rather than dig itself deeper, US should abandon failed policies & return to #JCPOA.”
MNA/4761480