Iran calls new U.S. sanctions a wrong move at a wrong time

Iran said on Thursday that the approval of a bill to tighten sanctions on the country by the U.S. House of Representatives would only complicate the dispute between Iran and the West over Tehran’s nuclear program.
The bill, which passed 400 to 20 on Wednesday, would cut Iran’s oil exports by another 1 million barrels per day over a year to near zero, in an attempt to reduce the flow of funds to Iran’s nuclear program, according to Reuters.

Iran and the West are at loggerheads over Tehran’s nuclear program, which Iran says is entirely peaceful but the West suspects may be a cover for developing nuclear weapons.

It is the first sanctions bill to put a number on exactly how much Iran’s oil exports would be cut.

The bill still has to be passed in the Senate and signed by U.S. President Barack Obama before becoming law.

Critics of the bill said it shows an aggressive signal to Iran that last month voted in Hassan Rohani, a cleric many see as a moderate. The new president will be sworn in on Sunday.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Araqchi called the vote “the wrong move at the wrong time,” saying, “The sanctions policy is a failed policy and, under the current circumstances, will only make the existing problems, especially the nuclear issue, more complicated and more difficult to resolve.

“The experience of the past three decades has shown that such outdated approaches have no effect on the will of the Iranian people to restore their obvious rights. There is a consensus on this even among U.S. analysts and Iranologists.