TEHRAN – Saeed Khatibzadeh, the spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said on Sunday that the U.S. intends to starve the Iranian people, according to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) news agency.

In line with the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure policy” against the Islamic Republic, the U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday imposed new sanctions on Iran, targeting “eighteen major Iranian banks.” U.S. Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin said the restrictions were intended to sever Iran’s ties with the global financial system.

“Today, U.S. Treasury took further action to isolate the Iranian economy from the global financial system as the regime uses the financial sector to advance its malign agenda,” Mnuchin said in a tweet.

However, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said Iran will do its best to protect national interests and “meet the people’s needs”.

“The U.S., which has no inhibition about doing its utmost to starve the people of Iran, seeks to impose maximum pressure on the Iranian people but the government and the system are determined to defend national interests and meet the people’s needs. All firms and government bodies are doing their best to meet internal needs through producing some needed medicines or importing some medicines,” Khatibzadeh stated.

Khatibzadeh called the new sanctions “a crime against humanity.”

“What America does is a crime against humanity. They want to intensify maximum pressure in the remaining days but this measure does not affect us,” said the spokesman, dismissing the new U.S. sanctions as “psychological campaign.”

He also described U.S. President Donald Trump as a “psycho” who govern a country suffering from a litany of internal and international troubles but keep imposing sanctions on other countries within the framework of a “psychological campaign”.

Iran has denounced the sanctions as “inhumane,” saying they were intended to cut off Iran’s remaining channels to pay for food & medicine” amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Amid Covid19 pandemic, U.S. regime wants to blow up our remaining channels to pay for food & medicine. Iranians WILL survive this latest of cruelties. But conspiring to starve a population is a crime against humanity. Culprits & enablers—who block our money—WILL face justice,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted on Thursday.

Under the new U.S. sanctions, “all property and interests in property of designated targets that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons must be blocked and reported to OFAC. OFAC’s regulations generally prohibit all dealings by U.S. persons or within the United States (including transactions transiting the United States) that involve any property or interests in property of blocked or designated persons,” according to a Treasury statement.

Khatibzadeh said the U.S. behavior is indicative of the U.S. failure.

“This country withdrew from the JCPOA and has done its utmost to defeat Iran, but we did not allow them to feel even a little bit victorious,” asserted the spokesman, referring to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with world powers by its acronym.

Khatibzadeh said Iran has faced some difficulties importing some medicines such as the Influenza vaccine because some of the humanitarian trade channels have been blocked.

According to the spokesman, Iran’s usual medicines supply routes have been blocked because the U.S. has used everything in its power to defeat Iran.

“But as Mr. Zarif said, we are subspecialists in circumventing the sanctions. In addition to internal measures, we have youth outside of Iran whose hearts beat for Iran. They provide the country with the needed medicines and foods from abroad,” Khatibzadeh pointed out.

SM/PA