Tehran Seeks International Support to Mitigate Impact of U.S. Sanctions

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said the latest U.S. Senate legislation that would impose new sanctions on Iran was a violation of international law and U.N. conventions, the Iranian media reported. He made the remarks in a speech at the meeting of the Eurasia’s parliament speakers in South Korea on Tuesday. “It is necessary that the governments and parliaments of the Eurasia region to adopt the necessary mechanisms in a bid to prevent such bullying behaviors and also to nullify the effects of such sanctions,” Larijani said. “In fact, the US strategy is playing with terrorism, not fighting it,” he said, calling on Eurasian states to “increase the costs for those promoting the ideology of terrorism and their sponsors in propaganda, political and security fields.”

Comments: As the Trump administration is ratcheting up economic sanctions on Iran and working with Washington’s Arab allies to push back against Iran’s growing influence in the region, Iranian officials are reaching out to potential allies around the world to minimize the impact of U.S.-led efforts to contain the Islamic Republic. Tehran, in particular, is trying to drive a wedge between the United States and major European powers. On Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif blasted the Trump administration’s travel ban and new U.S. sanctions on Iran in a meeting with his German counterpart Sigmar Gabriel in Berlin. The foreign minister of Germany, which is a signatory to the Iran nuclear accord, agreed with Zarif that the deal should be fully implemented by all parties involved. "We stand behind this agreement and want to support all the parties in their efforts to fulfill it," Gabriel said. "As the Federal Republic of Germany and as Europeans we would oppose any attempts to call it into question."