TEHRAN – President Hassan Rouhani says the U.S. government’s maximum-pressure campaign against Tehran, especially by targeting Iran’s relations with foreign banks and companies, amounts to a “terrorist act”.

“The Americans’ pressure on banks and companies to [halt] business with Iran is one hundred percent a terrorist act,” Rouhani said in a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, ISNA reported.

Hostility between Tehran and Washington has intensified under U.S. President Donald Trump, who withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal last May and reimposed sanctions lifted under the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The Trump administration has also sought to damage Iran’s ties with Europe through different means, the latest of which was its co-hosting of an anti-Iran summit in Warsaw, Poland.

“They failed to organize a decent meeting in Warsaw, and although the European Union is considered a close ally of the United States and the meeting was hosted by a European country, many important European countries sent lower-level officials,” the Iranian president remarked.

“Today, there’s an all-out sparring match between Iran and America, meaning that they’re using all of their power against the Iranian nation and the Iranian nation is also using all of its willpower, hope and confidence against them,” he said.

Rouhani pointed to U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s calls on European states to exit the JCPOA, saying Pence’s efforts failed because Europeans responded decisively that they will remain in the deal.

In the meantime, he continued, the U.S. house speaker has also described U.S. unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA as “completely wrong”.

‘No doubt nation’s willpower will defeat America’

The president further argued that there’s a “war of willpowers” between the two countries, saying, “We have no doubt about the victory of the Iranian nation’s willpower against America.”

He stressed that the Iranian nation will never succumb to pressure and bullying.

The Iranian nation and government are banded together and “our alliance and unity can drive us to success against their pressure,” Rouhani noted.

MH/PA