Russia: America’s New Sanction against Iran Is Unacceptable

The Russian Foreign Ministry announced yesterday that unilateral sanctions by the U.S. against two Iranian companies raises serious questions.

The Russian foreign minister announced that the sanction imposed against the Iranian national airline and the transportation company Tidewater brings the U.N. Security Council’s power into question, in addition to posing a threat to Russia’s trade relations with these companies. In his statement he said, “This situation is unacceptable to us and must be reconsidered.”*

In total, America’s latest action was a boycott of the Airline of the Islamic Republic of Iran (HOMA) and two other companies. An Iranian citizen was accused of violating international sanctions due to his cooperation with the Iranian army and assistance he provided to Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

In reaction to the Iran Air sanction, Mohammad Khazaei, Iranian representative to the U.N., wrote a letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that was highly critical of the new American sanctions. In this letter he said that boycotts were based on “untrue and void allegations” and requested that his letter be published as a “document of the United Nations General Assembly.”

Yukiya Amano, president of the International Atomic Energy Agency, mentioned at a news conference in Vienna that he had received an invitation from Fereydoon Abbasi, president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, to visit his country. However, Amano said he would wait for the details of such a visit to be transparent. He said that visiting Iran would be as a “good opportunity,” but that “a constructive, concrete result is needed.”

Western countries accuse Iran of seeking nuclear weapons. Even though Iran has been placed under four rounds of sanctions by the U.N., it has continued to say that it only seeks nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Since the last sanction resolution adopted by the United Nations Security Council was imposed against Iran in May 2010, the United States, the European Union and many other countries have imposed sanctions unilaterally as well.