Iran will never bow to US sanctions: Senior official

A senior adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says the Islamic Republic will never cower in the face of the arbitrary restrictions, particularly those imposed on the country by the US.

Ali-Akbar Velayati, who advises the Leader on international affairs, made the remarks in Tehran on Wednesday at the 10th gathering of the Supreme Council of the World Assembly of Islamic Awakening, of which he is the secretary general.

“The difference between Iran and many other countries, and also the Iran that existed prior to the [1979] Islamic Revolution and after it, is in the very fact that the Islamic Republic will not bow to US sanctions,” he said.

“Americans should know it is them who will suffer losses in the end,” he added.

Velayati was reacting to a recent US Congress vote to reauthorize Washington’s sanctions law against Tehran, called the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA).

The law, which would authorize the US president to re-impose sanctions on Iran, was first adopted in 1996 to punish investments in the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program and support for anti-Israeli resistance groups. The ISA now needs President Barack Obama’s signature to turn into law.

This is while Iran had all nuclear-related sanctions lifted on the back of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear accord it signed with the P5+1 group of countries — the US, Britain, Russia, France and China plus Germany — last year in Vienna.

In response to the congressional vote, President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday ordered the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) to plan work on nuclear propulsion devices to be used in sea transport in response to the US recent violation of the nuclear deal.

Velayati further said Tehran followed legal pathways on its course to sign the agreement, and it will proceed through the same channels to retaliate against the congressional measure.

“The presidential order is the first proportionate countermeasure, and will definitely not be the last,” the Iranian official said, adding that more measures have already been planned.

The Americans “have the habit of arbitrarily taking whatever decision they want in the world, and then saying ‘the decisions had been legitimate,’” Velayati noted.

The comments came a day after Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the country had twice written to the European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini in reaction to the recent US Congress move.

Tehran has also submitted a official letter of complaint to the United Nations in that regard.