Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has vowed to ‘break’ sanctions re-imposed by the US targeting core parts of the country’s economy.
The Trump administration is restoring all sanctions lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal in a bid to pressure Iran.
They will hit oil experts, shipping and banks, and make it difficult to do business with the oil-rich nation.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Iran must “act like a normal country or see its economy crumble”.
Pompeo told a press conference on Monday that more than 20 nations have already cut their oil intake from the Islamic Republic, and that exports have fallen by a million barrels a day.
President Rouhani earlier struck a defiant tone, saying Iran would “continue selling oil.
“We will proudly break the sanctions,” he told a meeting of economic officials.
European countries which are still designed to curb Iran’s nuclear activity say they will help businesses bypass the sanctions. But there are no doubts about how successful this will be.
Even before the US sanctions were re-imposed, Iran’s economy had had a difficult year, with Iran’s currency, the rial, plummeting against the dollar, driving up the prices of basic goods.
