Iran urges US to drop “reliance on sanctions”

Iran on Saturday called on the United States to stop systematically resorting to sanctions and accused President Joe Biden of adopting a “no-way” strategy against Tehran, like his predecessor Donald Trump.

Khatibzadeh’s remarks came a day after the US Treasury Department announced financial sanctions against four other Iranians, an Iranian foreign relations spokesman said.

“Washington must recognize that it has no choice but to give up its reliance on sanctions and show respect in its statements and behavior towards Iran,” Khatibzadeh said in a statement.

According to the US Treasury, the four people added to its blacklist on Friday are “four agents of the Iranian intelligence services” who are accused of planning the 2018 kidnapping of Masih Alinejad, an outspoken critic of the Iranian government and Iranian-American journalist. The feminist activist behind the anti-fog movement.

In July US justice announced an end to the plot, according to which Iranian intelligence agents tried to force Alinejad’s relatives to travel to a third country in 2018 to arrest him and take him to Iran.

In 2018, Trump unilaterally pulled the United States out of the Vienna International Agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, and reimposed sanctions against Tehran.

Biden, who replaced him in the White House in January, says he wants to be part of the deal again. But talks to allow it, which began in Vienna in April, have stalled since the victory of ultra-conservative Ibrahim Raisi in June’s presidential elections.

In August, the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, accused the Biden administration of being too similar to the previous one, because “even if it uses other words on the nuclear issue, it demands Iran the same as Trump.”

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