“The country is facing economic warfare from the US and its European allies. In financial terms, it is equivalent to attacking the country with a weapon of mass destruction,” Finian Cunningham wrote on the Press TV website.
“The disruption and hardship being inflicted on Iranian citizens is criminal and unspeakably callous. But let’s make no mistake: the suffering of Iranian people is the direct result of conscious decisions being made in Washington, London and Brussels,” he added.
Cunningham said the sanctions are “unwarranted, criminal acts of war and crimes against humanity, initiated by Washington and its Western lackey governments.”
At the beginning of 2012, the US and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.
The illegal US-engineered sanctions were imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
Cunningham said the Western powers are using these “baseless allegations” to commit “acts of war on the Iranian economy.”
“That is not hyperbole,” he noted, adding, “These sanctions are aimed at causing maximum damage to the Iranian economy and society, delivering the kind of disruption that would be comparable to ballistic missiles.”
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