Iran poured scorn on Tuesday on U.S.’s warning to impose more sanctions and told European powers to step up and salvage its international nuclear deal.
Senior Iranian military and political figures queued up to issue defiant statements a day after Washington threatened “the strongest sanctions in history” if Iran failed to make a series of sweeping changes. “The people of Iran should stand united in the face of this and they will deliver a strong punch to the mouth of the American Secretary of State and anyone who backs them,” said Ismail Kowsari, a senior commander with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, according to the Iranian Labour News Agency.
The head of Iran’s National Security and Foreign Policy committee in Parliament said that the only way to salvage the nuclear deal would be for the European signatories to stand up to the United States. “Today they must show their strength in the face of American pressure,” Alaeddin Borujerdi said, according to the Iranian Students’ News Agency.
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Eshagh Jahangiri, the country’s first Vice President said Mr. Pompeo was “40 years behind the times. The Iranian nation had the revolution so that no one can tell them what to do”. He added that the U.S. will “eventually have to come to terms with the reality that Iran... must be spoken to with the language of courtesy and logic and not with the language of threats”.