Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari reportedly called the new USA sanctions illegitimate, vowing to continue enhancing the country’s missile capabilities.
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The US had launched the sanctions on Sunday amid worries that Iran’s ballistic missile program would be used to carry atomic warheads.
Still, said Ansari, “The U.S. sanctions against Iran’s ballistic missile program… have no legal or moral legitimacy”.
But the day before the sanctions were to be imposed, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif warned Kerry that if Washington went ahead, the deal could be endangered, according to a US official and congressional sources. “Yesterday these families finally got the news they’d been waiting for”, he said referring to the United States nationals who have been released by Iran.
In his first comments since the agreement was implemented, Khamenei stressed in a letter to President Hassan Rouhani the need to “guard against deceit and violations of arrogant states particularly the United States”.
Also Monday, Yukiya Amano, the head of the world’s nuclear watchdog, said Iran has agreed to strengthen its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Lifting the sanctions would unfreeze a huge amount of assets, around tens of billions of U.S. dollars, and allow Iranian oil to be sold internationally.
“They never gave in and they never gave up”, Obama said of the Americans, some of whom reportedly experienced torture in years-long detentions. On Saturday, the USA and Iran announced that four Americans detained in Iran would be released from prison and the US would pardon or drop charges against seven Iranians accused or convicted of violating US sanctions.
One more Iranian-American released under the same swap, Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, was not aboard the aircraft.
Speaking at a Liberal government cabinet retreat in New Brunswick, Mr. Dion said Ottawa must decide in a “timely fashion” so that Canadian companies hoping to do business with Iran are not disadvantaged.
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Obama said the USA and its allies will be “steadfast” in confronting Iran over actions to destabilize the region, and its threats to Israel, which opposed the nuclear deal.
