TEHRAN- Kuwait's Foreign Minister Shaikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah, in a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif on Tuesday, said his government has allocated a $10 million aid package to counter COVID-19 outbreak in Iran.

“The Kuwaiti government and people stay with the Iranian government and people in these hard days,” the Kuwaiti foreign minister said. 

Zarif, for his part, appreciated the Kuwaiti government and people for the aid as well as their sympathy, saying containing coronavirus pandemic requires regional and international cooperation.

Zarif further condemned the U.S. illegal and unilateral sanctions against Iran, calling on Kuwait to participate in a global campaign aimed at halting such inhuman embargoes.

Wring on his official Twitter account on Saturday, Zarif lashed out at U.S. President Donald Trump for intensifying unilateral sanctions on Tehran amid COVID-19 outbreak across the country, noting that the move was nothing but “medical terrorism.

According to the Intercept's report released at the time, despite a massive coronavirus-related public health crisis, an anti-Iran pressure group with close ties to the Trump administration was urging major pharmaceutical companies to “end their Iran business,” focusing on companies with special licenses — most often under a broadly defined “humanitarian exemption” — to conduct trade with Iran. 

Zarif in his tweet reacted sharply to the move.

"Donald Trump is maliciously tightening U.S. illegal sanctions with aim of draining Iran's resources needed in the fight against COVID19—while our citizens are dying from it,” Zarif tweeted.

The foreign minister added, “The world can no longer be silent as U.S. Economic Terrorism is supplanted by its Medical Terrorism."

President Hassan Rouhani has said that the fight against the illness is being hampered by U.S. sanctions.

COVID-19, which is thought to have originated in Wuhan last December, has spread to more than 162 countries and territories. The global death toll from the virus as of March 17 passed 7,332 with more than 185,387 cases confirmed worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

As of Tuesday, COVID-19 death toll in Iran reached 988.

Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour also said 16,169 Iranians have been confirmed infected with the virus.

In order to stop the spread of the disease schools and universities have been shut down and cultural and religious gatherings have been cancelled. It is also constantly disinfecting and sanitizing public places.

MJ/PA