Tehran: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani vowed Sunday to respond to the United States’ unilateral move to reinstate United Nations sanctions against Tehran.
In a televised address during a cabinet meeting Sunday evening, Rouhani warned, “if the U.S. wants to engage in bullying, it will face Iran’s rigid response,” state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Rouhani described the yearlong effort to reimpose the sanctions not only as a defeat for the Trump administration but one that has isolated the United States on the diplomatic stage.
“From now on, what the United States speaks about means nothing but rebellion, and no one will accept it, and the consequences of such words and such positions will go back to the United States itself,” Rouhani said, according to a summary of the meeting published by his office.
Despite international pushback, the Trump administration on Saturday said it reimposed U.N. sanctions against Iran that were removed following the 2015 nuclear deal. The sanctions include extending an arms embargo.
“The United States expects all U.N. member states to fully comply with their obligations to implement these measures,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement Saturday night.
Pompeo has said the United States can reimpose the sanctions despite no longer being a party to the nuclear deal, as it is a U.N. member and can invoke the so-called snapback mechanism in Resolution 2231 that recognizes the deal also signed by China, France, Germany, Russia, Britain and the European Union.
