‘World must push US to lift sanctions as Iran fights coronavirus’

Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani has called on Muslim nations and other world countries to take a stand against America’s unilateral sanctions against Iran and push for the swift lifting of the restrictive measures, which are hampering the country’s fight against a coronavirus outbreak.

Larijani expressed dismay at the inhumane anti-Iran bans in letters addressed to the president of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the secretary-general of the Parliamentary Union of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Member States, the head of the Asian Parliamentary Assembly, and the speakers of the parliaments of Muslim and Asian states.

He said the sanctions, which target medical and laboratory supplies to Iran, are throwing a wrench in the Islamic Republic’s efforts to rein in the COVID-19 epidemic, urging the international community to adopt a principled position on the immediate lifting of all sanctions against the Iranian people.

On Tuesday, Iran confirmed 54 news deaths, the highest daily toll so far, raising the total fatality count to 291.  A total of 8,042 infections have been diagnosed. And 2,731 patients have recovered, the Healthy Ministry said.

The developments unfolding today on the world stage “have more than ever highlighted the need for national, regional and international efforts and cooperation toward the mobilization of all the technical and logistical capabilities to assist the countries affected by the virus,” Larijani wrote, demanding “urgent, effective and comprehensive” action to help Iran and other states contain the outbreak.

Larijani stressed that Iran is standing at the forefront of the fight against the disease, saying it is “regrettable” that the country has been “systematically subjected to unilateral US sanctions either directly or indirectly at this very critical juncture.”

Washington’s “approach clearly violates the UN Charter and that of the World Health Organization (WHO) and has not only seriously hampered Iran’s intensive efforts to help affected people and contain the spread of the coronavirus, but also left negative and undeniable impacts on all national, regional and international efforts to contain the virus.”

Larijani said Iran expects the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the entire global community to join voices and press the US “unambiguously and based on their own principles” to lift the anti-Iran bans as soon as possible.

The US reinstated its sanctions against Iran in May 2018 after unilaterally scrapping a nuclear deal, which was signed in 2015 between Iran and six world states and endorsed by United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231.

The illegal US bans have severely impacted the Iranians’ access to life-saving medical supplies.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered the US to lift the sanctions it has illegally re-imposed on humanitarian supplies to Iran.