US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin attends a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill, February 12, 2020, in Washington, DC. (Photo by AFP)
The US sanctions imposed on Iran are an "act of war" as they hamper the Islamic Republics efforts to counter the new coronavirus pandemic, says an American writer and former university professor, adding that the US Treasury Department, which is responsible for implementing restrictive measures against Tehran, is a "hotbed of Zionism."
E. Michael Jones, the editor of Culture Wars magazine, made the remark during a Thursday edition of Press TVs The Debate program while commenting on Iran, which has accused the administration in Washington of "medical terrorism" after its unilateral sanctions severely stymied the countrys ability to respond to the deadly virus outbreak and to protect the health and well-being of all Iranians.
Novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, is a new respiratory disease that emerged in China in December last year and has spread around the world, halting industries, bringing travel to a standstill, closing schools, and forcing the cancellation of public events.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday declared COVID-19 a pandemic, pointing to the over 118,000 cases of the coronavirus illness in over 110 countries and territories around the world and the sustained risk of further global spread.
Iran, badly hit by the coronavirus, is encountering shortages of sanitizers and face masks, like other countries throughout the world, and has mobilized all in its power to fight the disease while at the same time it is facing unilateral US sanctions.
"The sanctions are unjust, they are an act of war and they should be lifted; they should never have been imposed in the first place. The people imposing the sanctions; its Secretary [Steven] Menuchin of the Treasury office, it is the sanctions office in the Treasury which is a hotbed of Zionism and vindictive, political coercion," Jones told Press TV on Thursday.political coercion," Jones told Press TV on Thursday.
Asked whether the US was politicizing the outbreak to put pressure on the Iranian people, the American writer said the officials in the administration of US President, Donald Trump, have been "politicizing everything with the Iranian people," and thats part of "punishing" the Iranians over their 2015 nuclear agreement.
"The big issue here that no one can resolve at this point is whether this is a bio weapon that escaped from the laboratories in Wuhan or whether its a kind of natural occurrence like the flu every year," Jones went on to say, referring to the Chinese city identified as the epicenter of the virus outbreak.
"The only reasonable response seems to be the quarantine, thats not something that costs any money, its disruptive but it doesnt cost any money... Iran is perfectly capable of imposing quarantine without any type of outside help," he added.
The US reinstated its sanctions against Iran in May 2018 after leaving a UN-endorsed nuclear agreement with Iran and the P5+1 group of countries.
Tehran sued Washington at the International Court of Justice afterwards. The tribunal ruled that the US should lift its sanctions on humanitarian supplies.
Paolo Raffone, a political analyst in Brussels, was the other panelist invited to The Debate program and described the US sanctions against Iran as a "weapon" to wage an indirect war on the country.
"It is absolutely nonsensical to apply sanctions on medical needs especially during the pandemic that we are all living, but as we know the United States uses this as a weapon to conduct an indirect type of war towards Iran," Raffone said.
Denouncing as "very incomprehensible" a recent statement by the US to help Iran fight the coronavirus, the analyst said, "The Trump administration is not capable to help itself at all, so how do they think can help anybody else outside of the United States. We see whats happening with this pandemic in the United States is a total mismanagement at the moment."
More than 126,000 people have been infected by the virus across the world and 4,630 have died, the vast majority of them in China, according to a Reuters tally.
Irans Health Ministry announced on Thursday that 1,075 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been detected across the country in the last 24 hours, which brings the total number of infected people to 10,075. He also put the death toll at 429.
SOURCE: PRESS TV
LINK: https://www.ansarpress.com/english/14581
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