As Iran battles pandemic, US says Tehran’s appeal for sanctions relief is a ‘scam’
In the face of a crescendo of international calls to lift sanctions against Iran as it battles against the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump Administration has said that Tehran’s calls for a lifting of the restrictions is a ‘scam.’
In a fact sheet titled ‘Iran’s Sanctions Relief Scam’, the US State Department said that ‘Iran’s slick foreign influence campaign to obtain sanctions relief is not intended for the relief or health of the Iranian people but to raise funds for its terror operations.’
It said that US sanctions were not preventing aid from getting to Iran, adding that, ‘The United States maintains broad authorizations that allow for the sale of food, agricultural commodities, medicine, and medical devices by U.S persons or from the United States to Iran.’
The fact sheet accused Iranian officials of spending money on the military, lying about shortages of medicines and equipment needed to fight the pandemic, and engaging in a propaganda war. ‘Clearly, their priority is access to cash, not medicine,’ the document said.
‘The Iranian government created a website in early March to coordinate Iranian government propaganda about coronavirus and efforts to end U.S. sanctions,’ the fact sheet charges. ‘Iran also possesses sufficient funds on hand to fight against the coronavirus outbreak. Iran controls hundreds of billions of dollars in its National Development Fund as well as Supreme Leader Khamenei’s many hedge funds flush with assets originally confiscated from the Iranian people. These funds can be used for government spending.’
Iranian leaders, including President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, have repeatedly appealed for the sanctions to be lifted.
Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported Monday that a group of 24 senior diplomats and defence officials, including four former NATO secretary generals, have urged President Trump to save ‘potentially hundreds of thousands of lives’ lost to coronavirus across the Middle East by easing medical and humanitarian sanctions on Iran.
It said the call has the backing of the former EU foreign affairs chief, Federica Mogherini, the former director general of the World Health Organization, Gro Harlem Brundtland, and senior US diplomats in the Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations.
Challenging US State Department claims that medical trade is not blocked by US sanctions, the group of former leaders said they have identified a series of barriers that make medical trade near impossible.
