{"id":28494,"date":"2019-01-10T02:23:38","date_gmt":"2019-01-10T02:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=28494"},"modified":"2019-01-10T02:23:38","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T02:23:38","slug":"unprecedented-us-sanctions-are-pressuring-iran-says-khamenei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=28494","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Unprecedented\u2019 US sanctions are pressuring Iran, says Khamenei"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nTEHRAN, GENEVA, NEW DELHI: US sanctions are putting unprecedented pressure on Iranians, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\nUS President Donald Trump last year pulled out of an international pact on Iran\u2019s nuclear program and reimposed sanctions intended to scupper Tehran\u2019s oil exports, curb its missile program and clip its regional influence. The measures have hit Iran\u2019s economy hard.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe sanctions do put pressure on the country and the people,\u201d Khamenei said, according to a transcript on his website of a speech in Tehran to commemorate an event from the 1979 revolution.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe Americans happily say that these sanctions are unprecedented in history. Yes, they\u2019re unprecedented. And the defeat that the Americans will face will be unprecedented,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\nAeropace program<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nMeanwhile, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran will continue with its aerospace program despite US warnings, adding there was no international law prohibiting such a program.<\/p>\n

\nZarif, who is in New Delhi on a bilateral visit, also told Reuters that leaving a 2015 nuclear deal agreed with world powers is an option available with Tehran but is not the only option on the table.<\/p>\n

\nThe US earlier this month issued a pre-emptive warning to Iran against pursuing three planned space rocket launches that it said would violate a UN Security Council resolution because they use ballistic missile technology.<\/p>\n

\nUnder the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which enshrined the nuclear deal in 2015, Iran is \u201ccalled upon\u201d to refrain from work on ballistic missiles designed to deliver nuclear weapons for up to eight years.<\/p>\n

\nIran has ruled out negotiations with Washington over its military capabilities, particularly the missile programme run by the Revolutionary Guards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nIt says the programme is purely defensive and denies missiles are capable of being tipped with nuclear warheads.<\/p>\n

\nU.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of an international agreement on Iran\u2019s nuclear programme in May and reimposed sanctions on Tehran. He said the deal was flawed because it did not include curbs on Iran\u2019s development of ballistic missiles or its support for proxies in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq.<\/p>\n

\n\u2018First-class idiots\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nIran\u2019s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Wednesday dubbed some US officials \u201cfirst-class idiots\u201d as he ridiculed them for predicting the collapse of the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSome US officials pretend that they are mad. Of course I don\u2019t agree with that, but they are first-class idiots,\u201d he said in speech in Tehran, quoted on his official Twitter feed.<\/p>\n

\nKhamenei was having a dig at US officials who had predicted there would be regime change in Iran by the end of 2018.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cA while ago, a US politician had said, among a gathering of terrorists and thugs, that he hopes to celebrate this Christmas in Tehran,\u201d Khamenei said, according to his Twitter feed.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cChristmas was a few days ago. This is how US calculations work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nIt was not clear to which US official he was referring, but members of President Donald Trump\u2019s administration have called for regime change and predicted it would happen soon.<\/p>\n

\nThis has included National Security Advisor John Bolton — a long-time regime change advocate — who often speaks at gatherings of the exiled People\u2019s Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK) opposition group, considered a terrorist cult by Tehran\u2019s leaders.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBefore 2019 we here will celebrate in Tehran,\u201d Bolton told an MEK meeting in Paris in July 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TEHRAN, GENEVA, NEW DELHI: US sanctions are putting unprecedented pressure on Iranians, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday. US President Donald Trump last year pulled out of an international pact on Iran\u2019s nuclear program and reimposed sanctions intended to scupper Tehran\u2019s oil exports, curb its missile program and clip its regional influence. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":28495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}