"No threat of new sanctions will stop our legitimate and mutually beneficial cooperation with Iran. We have been living under US anti-Russia sanctions since 2012. It is clear that over this period there has been a serious adaptation to this illegal trick by the United States," Ryabkov told Sputnik news agency.
Iran has an even bigger experience on how to live under the US sanctions, the deputy foreign minister noted.
"Therefore, we perceive threats of this kind calmly, we do not succumb to blackmail and we will systematically expand and develop our cooperation with the Islamic Republic of Iran, including in the atomic energy sector in full compliance with international law and the national legislation of our countries, regardless of what US colleagues are undertaking, realizing, as they believe, their right to the extraterritorial application of their national legislation," Ryabkov stressed.
Sergei Ryabkov's remarks follow US Department of State spokesperson's announcement made on Friday that the United States may impose sanctions against actors providing assistance to expand Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant starting on 4 May.
Iran reached a deal with Russia on the first stage of the Bushehr project — the Bushehr 1 — in 1992. In 2014, Russia and Iran signed an agreement to build the second and third reactors for the Bushehr plant, Sputnik said.
On May 8, 2018, Donald Trump illegally pulled his country of the Iran nuclear deal with world powers also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and reimposed is unilateral secondary sanctions in an effort to cripple Iran's economy and force it into accepting a new nuclear deal. The US intensified its pressures against the Iranian nation recently by refusing to reissue sanctions waivers on Iranian oil sales followed by a Friday announcement that it would try to force Iran to stop nuclear enrichment in a blatant violation of the nuclear deal.
Iran announced on Saturday that it will continue enriching uranium in accordance with the JCPOA.
KI/Sputnik
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