Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, has slammed the United States’ policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran as the main cause of many problems in the region.

“Three years ago everything was fine.  #JCPOA was implemented smoothly and fully, freedom of navigation in P.Gulf, safe oil terminals, no military incidents etc. Why now everything is spoiled? The answer is obvious - it is the result of US “maximum pressure policy,” he tweeted on Friday.

U.S. President Donald Trump quit the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, in May 2018 and introduced the harshest ever sanctions on Iran as part of his administration’s “maximum pressure” policy against the country.

Talking in a press conference in New York in late September, President Hassan Rouhani urged the U.S. to quit policy of maximum pressure and pursue a policy of dialogue and logic.

Iranian officials insist that the maximum pressure policy has failed.

Rouhani said in October that the Iranian nation has successfully passed the difficult test of countering the “maximum pressure” policy of the ill-wishers.

First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri also said in October that Iran has succeeded to defeat the U.S. 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.

Abbas Araqchi, a top nuclear negotiator and deputy foreign minister, has said Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran has produced “maximum resistance”.

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.

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,” Kerry told CBS News.

NA/PA