Iran said on Tuesday that new US sanctions targeting the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top officials meant a “permanent closure” of diplomacy between Tehran and Washington.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing the sanctions on Monday, taking a dramatic and unprecedented step to increase pressure on Iran after Tehran’s downing of an American drone last week.
Washington said it would also impose sanctions on Iran’s Foreign Minister Zarif later this week.
“Imposing useless sanctions on Iran’s Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) and the commander of Iran’s diplomacy (Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif) is the permanent closure of the path of diplomacy,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in a tweet.
“Trump’s desperate administration is destroying the established international mechanisms for maintaining world peace and security.”
With tensions running high between the two countries, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the sanctions would lock billions of dollars more in Iranian assets.
Trump told reporters the sanctions were in part a response the drone incident, but would have happened anyway. He said Khamenei was ultimately responsible for what Trump called “the hostile conduct of the regime” in the Middle East.
“Sanctions imposed through the executive order … will deny the Supreme Leader and the Supreme Leader’s office, and those closely affiliated with him and the office, access to key financial resources and support,” Trump said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif responded in a Twitter post that hawkish politicians close to Trump “despise diplomacy, and thirst for war”. Last year, Trump withdrew the United States from a 2015 international accord to restrict Tehran’s pathway to a nuclear bomb and has since been ramping up sanctions to throttle the Iranian economy.