Iran's top diplomat claims U.S. addiction to 'coercion' after latest sanctions

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Iran denounces new US sanctions as 'illegal



Iran’s top diplomat is deriding new unilateral sanctions from the United States as “illegal.”
The sanctions imposed by the U.S. on Sunday are “uncalled for,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told The Associated Press in an interview published on Wednesday.
“We believe the sanctions are illegal. They violate basic principles,” he added. “The Iranian missile program is a legitimate defense program.”
The sanctions went into place on Sunday in retaliation for Iran’s testing of ballistic missiles. International officials have insisted that Iran’s missile tests were a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
According to Zarif, the new effort demonstrates how the U.S. has an "addiction to pressure, addiction to coercion, addiction to sanctions."

[FONT=proxima-nova, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Iran’s top diplomat claims U.S. addiction to ‘coercion’ after latest sanctions[/FONT]

WATCH ABOVE: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the U.S. has an "addiction to coercion" on Wednesday, despite improved relations and a historic nuclear deal.'

 

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Iran: Saudi Arabia is 'panicking,' the 2 countries can coexist


Iran: Saudi Arabia is 'panicking' - CNN.com

Iran: We don't have 'a fight to pick with Saudi Arabia' 00:37
(CNN)Iran's foreign minister says Saudi Arabia is "panicking" over the potential for reduced tensions between Tehran and the West, that he is happy for the families of Americans previously imprisoned in Iran, and that the U.S. is "addicted" to sanctions.
"We do not have a fight to pick with Saudi Arabia," Javad Zarif told CNN's Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive TV interview.
"We believe that Iran and Saudi Arabia can be two important players who can accommodate each other, who can complement each other, in the region."
"Unfortunately, the Saudis have had the illusion that backed by their Western allies, they could push Iran out of the equation in the region."
Zarif said that the alliance between Saudi Arabia and Western nations, and the tension between those nations and Iran, provided a "smoke screen" that allowed Saudi Arabia to "export this Wahhabi ideology of extremism." (Wahhabism is the branch of Sunni Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia.)
Hopes for relations between Iran and the West are high after last weekend's implementation of a hard-won deal, agreed to last July, to swap relief of sanctions on Iran for guarantees about the peaceful nature of its nuclear program.
The foreign minister emphasized, as he did in an op-ed for The New York Times earlier this month, that 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were Saudis, and blamed the "Wahhabi ideology" for much of the violent extremism now seen in the region and indeed in the West.
[FONT=CNN, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Utkal, sans-serif]Iran: Saudi Arabia is 'panicking' - CNN.com +VIDEO[/FONT]