TEHRAN — Calling for negotiation with U.S. President Donald Trump shows no understanding of power politics, says Hossein Amir Abdollahian, a senior foreign policy advisor to the Iranian Parliament speaker.

“As Trump ordered counter-terrorism commander Soleimani's assassination & new sanctions on Flag of Iran, calling for negotiation w/ Trump shows no understanding abt power politics,” Amir Abdollahian said via Twitter on Thursday.

“The White House is a 'LIES warehouse',” he said. “Never forget Flag of United States didn't lift Iran's medical sanction amid #CoronaCrisis.”

Despite the deleterious effects of the U.S. sanctions on Iran’s fight against the coronavirus outbreak, the Trump administration is not only refusing to remove its illegal sanctions on Iran, but it is also blocking Tehran’s efforts to get an emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund to cope with the disease.

President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday that the United States’ illegal sanctions against the Iranian people have been tightened in the difficult situation of fighting the coronavirus and its economic consequences.

Rouhani said Iran faces many problems in accessing medical equipment due to the sanctions, adding that fighting the coronavirus pandemic requires all countries’ cooperation.

Renowned American scholar Noam Chomsky has said it is “sheer sadism” that the United States maintains sanctions on Iran during the coronavirus pandemic.

“The sanctions are illegitimate in the first place, and maintaining them during the pandemic is sheer sadism,” Chomsky told IRNA in an interview published on May 2.

Speaking from his office in self-isolation to Croatian philosopher and author Srecko Horvat in April, Chomsky blasted Trump for continuing sanctions on Iran.

“When the U.S. imposes devastating sanctions – it’s the only country that can do that, everyone has to follow ... the master. Or else they are kicked out the financial system,” said Chomsky, according to Aljazeera.

Also, on March 31, a UN human rights expert called for lifting international sanctions against countries ranging from Iran to North Korea and Venezuela in coronavirus crisis, according to Reuters.

“The continued imposition of crippling economic sanctions on Syria, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, and, to a lesser degree, Zimbabwe, to name the most prominent instances, severely undermines the ordinary citizens’ fundamental right to sufficient and adequate food,” Hilal Elver, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said in a statement.

Elver, an independent expert, said that it was a matter of “humanitarian and practical urgency to lift unilateral economic sanctions immediately”.

In a telephone conversation on Wednesday, the Iranian and Austrian presidents expressed opposition to the persisting U.S. sanctions, saying the bans constitute an obstacle to the provision of medical supplies needed to combat the new coronavirus pandemic gripping the world.

President Rouhani and his Austrian counterpart Alexander Van der Bellen stressed the need for comprehensive international cooperation to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

MH/PA