TEHRAN – Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday that the United States’ policy of maximum pressure against Iran is “wrong”.

“We have said that the United States’ policies on Palestine and Quds and various other issues are wrong. We also consider Washington’s sanctions against Iran wrong,” ISNA quoted him as saying in an interview with Arabic Al Jazeera.

He noted, “We say no to the United States’ wrong policies.”

Turkish Ambassador to Tehran Derya Ors said on October 7 that his country is looking for ways to improve its trade ties with Iran despite the U.S. sanctions.

The U.S. State Department issued a fact sheet on Thursday announcing imposition of sanctions on sale of software used for industrial purposes, raw and semi-finished metals, graphite and coal used in Iran's construction sector.

The State Department said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had determined Iran’s construction sector was controlled directly or indirectly by Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Press TV reported.

The State Department also announced a separate batch of sanctions against what it described as the sale of “strategic material” being used “in connection with Iran’s nuclear, military, or ballistic missile programs.”

The State Department listed the sanctioned material as “stainless steel 304L tubes, MN40 manganese brazing foil, MN70 manganese brazing foil, and stainless steel CrNi60WTi ESR + VAR.”

Iran’s central bank governor, Abdolnaser Hemmati, called the sanctions repetitive. 

U.S. President Donald Trump quit the 2015 nuclear deal in May 2018 and introduced the harshest ever sanctions on Iran as part of “maximum pressure” against the country.

Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has called policy of “maximum pressure” on Tehran bankrupt.

“We have been pressuring them. Maximum pressure… we’re seeing the unfolding of really a bankruptcy of approach,” he told CBS News.

First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri said on October 7 that pressure and sanction against Iran have failed.

He added, “Despite the United States’ economic war against our country, the country is moving fast on the path of development.”

Jahangiri said on October 1 that Iran has succeeded to defeat the United States’ policy of “maximum pressure”.

“We have defeated the United States’ policy of maximum pressure and they are aware that this plan does not work against Iran,” he said at the time.

In an interview with NPR published on September 22, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that Iran will not succumb to economic pressure by Washington.

“Abandon the illusion that Iran can be defeated by pressure,” he said.

“We are resisting an unprovoked aggression by the United States. I can assure you that the United States will not be able to bring us to our knees through pressure,” he noted.

Zarif also told CGTN in an interview aired on September 22 that Washington’s policy of sanction and pressure against Iran has not worked.

“The United States is running out of options. It is desperate. The policy of maximum pressure has not worked,” he said.

NA/PA