US new strategy seeks to create complex situation for Iran: DM

Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami has warned that the US is pursuing its new strategy against Iran by creating a complicated situation for the country.

“The US seeks to implement its new strategy against the Islamic Republic of Iran by creating a complicated atmosphere,” Hatami said at a Tuesday conference in Tehran.

He pointed to US President Donald Trump’s efforts to change Iran’s nuclear deal with the world powers, and Washington’s opposition to removal of sanctions against Tehran as part of the new US strategy against the Islamic Republic.

General Hatami noted that the US seeks to complicate the situation through attempts to distracting the attention of the Islamic Republic’s decision-makers but noted that Iranian officials stand against such threats by relying on the nation’s vigilance and the country’s defense might.

On Friday, US President Donald Trump extended waivers of economic sanctions on Iran for another 120 days but said he was doing so “for the last time.”

Although the US president declined to withdraw from the Iran deal — which he has long railed against and formerly promised to “rip up” — he gave a four-month deadline to the US Congress and America’s main European allies to address what he called the “disastrous flaws” of the deal.

The agreement, reached between Iran and the P5+1 countries — the US, the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany — puts limitations on parts of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for removing all nuclear-related sanctions.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry also announced on Saturday that the country would commit to no obligation beyond those it has already agreed to under the nuclear agreement and that it would not renegotiate the deal.