“69 yrs ago today, Iran's democratically-elected PM nationalized our oil industry to end plunder of our wealth. US response: embargo + regime change,” Zarif tweeted on Thursday on the occasion of the anniversary of the nationalization of Oil Industry in 1951.
“From 1979, embargo + regime change again became staple of US policy on Iran - even amid #covid19,” he wrote, adding that its “Time to change a bankrupt policy.”
On March 20, 1951, members of the Iranian parliament voted unanimously in favor of a bill introduced by the country’s then democratically-elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddeq, to nationalize Iran’s oil industry.
Mosaddeq garnered the support of his nationalist party and religious figures led by prominent cleric, Ayatollah Abolqasem Kashani, for the initiative.
The initiative put an end to Britain’s four-decade monopoly over Iran’s oil industry. Before the bill was passed, the British oil giant, known as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), enjoyed monopolistic control over the industry and used to pay only a small share of the revenues to the Iranian government.
Iran had to pay a tough price for claiming its oil resources because Britain was not ready to easily give up its dominance over the Iranian crude.
In retaliation for Mosaddeq’s revolutionary move, Britain and the United States imposed sanctions against Iran’s oil sector and later colluded to stage a coup against the ex-premier’s government in 1953 in a bid to reinstate the Western-back monarch, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in power after the bans failed to bear result.
No after six decades, US is still making use of sanctions as a weapon against countries, including Iran, even when its public health is being threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
MNA/