A senior Iranian lawmaker says the crisis-hit economy of the European countries will be hurt by the US-engineered European Union (EU) sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic.

“Iran has so far proved that it has the power to circumvent sanctions and therefore the European countries and the US with their crisis-hit economies will be the main losers of the sanctions,” Chairman of the Majlis Economic Committee Arsalan Fathipour told IRNA on Monday.

He added that sanctions have always failed to have an impact on the Iranian nation’s resolve to achieve progress and they will continue to fail in future.
He said sanctions will not last for a long time because this project, belonging to arrogant powers, like their previous plots is doomed to failure.

On January 23, under the US pressure, the EU foreign ministers approved new sanctions against Tehran to prevent the union’s member states from buying the Iranian crude or doing business with the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) and to freeze Iranian assets across the union. The sanctions went into effect as of Sunday, July 1.

Washington and some of its Western allies claim Iran's nuclear energy program contains a military component.

Iran has strongly refuted the US-led allegations, arguing that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has every right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

On Saturday, Iran's Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said the country is completely prepared to counter the sanctions.
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News ID 182055