Russia slams unilateral sanctions of the United States against Iran as illegitimate

 

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova

Russia has reiterated that unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States against Iran are illegal, saying that Washington devised such punitive measures against Tehran to bypass the United Nations Security Council.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who accompanied Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in his visit to Iran, made the remarks in the Iranian capital Tehran on Tuesday, stressing that Moscow opposes such sanctions imposed on Iran, Russia, or any other country.

“Moscow’s stance on unilateral sanctions against Iran, Russia, and other countries is the same; in fact, we share the same view regarding such sanctions,” she told a journalist from Russian newspaper Izvestia.

“We have the same reaction to all sanctions that bypass the UN Security Council. They are illegitimate, they are illegal.”

A day earlier, the US Treasury and the US State departments sanctioned more than 30 people and ships, including the heads of Iran’s National Iranian Oil Co., and the Iranian Oil Terminals Co., for their role in brokering the sale and transportation of Iranian oil. 

This is the second round of sanctions imposed on Iranian oil sales since US President Donald Trump issued the so-called National Security Presidential Memorandum 2, which seeks to bring Iran's crude exports to zero.

Iran has long been subjected to Western sanctions over its nuclear activities and other pretexts.

The new administration at the White House has escalated these measures since taking office in January, reinstating the so-called maximum pressure policy, a campaign of hybrid warfare targeting the Islamic Republic.

The “snapback” mechanism for reimposing UN Security Council sanctions on Tehran was created to respond to instances where Iran would be the first to breach the 2015 nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Earlier in Moscow, Zakharova said that the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, collectively known as the E3 or European troika, lack the authority to reinstate sanctions on Iran since they have not fulfilled the obligations of UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which upholds the currently stalled nuclear deal with Tehran.

“Given the failure of European countries to fulfill the Security Council's requirements under Resolution 2231, they, like the American side, have no right to pursue the reinstatement of the lifted sanctions,” she noted.

Separately, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed that Moscow believes “if there is political will from all parties involved, Iran's nuclear issue can and should be resolved diplomatically.”

In 2015, Iran signed the JCPOA with six world powers. However, the US’s unilateral withdrawal in 2018 and its subsequent re-imposition of sanctions against Tehran left the future of the deal in limbo.

In 2019, Iran started to roll back the limits it had accepted under the JCPOA after the other parties failed to live up to their commitments.

The Islamic Republic has repeatedly stressed that it has never functioned as the side to leave negotiations, while declaring it would respond positively to any potential positive steps by the counterparty.