Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, head of Iran’s Islamic Seminaries and the Chairman of Al-Mustafa University, in a statement on Tuesday, said sanctioning the religious university is another shameful move as part of Washington’s ongoing policy of mounting “maximum pressure” on the Islamic Republic and the Iranian nation.
The senior cleric reminded that the sanctions were announced despite the fact that the academic center is a member of the International Association of Universities, whose graduates are known across the world as promoters of rationality and moderation, and whose scientific publications are aimed at spreading peace, friendship, and fraternity among nations.
He said sanctioning such an academic center, which serves humanity, progress, justice and truth is another proof of the arrogance and domination-seeking of the United States.
The senior cleric underlined that the new inhumane sanctions against Iran, just like the other ones, will lead to nowhere, but will accelerate the decline of the American and Zionist regimes.
Earlier in December, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced the name of Al-Mustafa International University, which is based in the north-central Iranian city of Qom, as well as Iran’s new ambassador to Yemen as the latest additions to the litany of the US sanctions against Iran.
In imposing the measures, the body groundlessly claimed that both the academic center and the envoy were linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).
The US resumed its economic war against Iran in 2018 under President Donald Trump's outgoing administration’s policy of “maximum pressure” against the Islamic Republic. Under the approach, Washington left an international nuclear accord between the Islamic Republic and world powers and returned the inhumane sanctions that the deal had lifted.
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