Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov. 3 / Trend D.Khatinoglu/
The U.S. sanctions against Iran are doomed to fail, Member of Parliament's national security and foreign policy commission Esmaeil Kosari told Trend on Thursday.
The U.S. Congress is moving to tighten sanctions against Iran, following allegations that a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington had Iranian backing. The House Foreign Affairs Committee has approved a bill targeting Iran's central bank, oil industry, nuclear program, and security forces, Voice of America reported on Thursday.
Two men, including a member of Iran's special foreign actions unit known as the Quds Force, were charged in New York federal court with conspiring to kill the Saudi diplomat.
The U.S. claimed that two Iranian citizens were preparing an attack on a Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington, and perhaps planned to blow up the country's embassy.
Iran rejected the accusation, saying this is U.S. diversionary tactic.
"The U.S. has imposed sanctions against Iran since 1981 (after economy blockage of Iran by the U.S.) repeatedly and attempting to isolate Iran is not a new story, but we have learnt how to neutralize and adapt to conditions," Iranian lawmaker said.
Kosari added that Americans think that Iran would give up under economic sanctions, but we have planned to minimize the effects of sanctions on people and the country's progress.
"We do not claim that the U.S. and its allies' bans on Iran have zero effect on Iran, but have not fatal to make Iran to give up."
Iran is under 4 rounds of the UN Security Council sanctions.
Iran's refusal to abandon its nuclear activities has resulted in resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council, as well as additional unilateral sanctions approved by the U.S. Congress and the foreign ministers of all EU countries, which were primarily directed against the banking, financial and energy sectors of Iran.
Restrictions imposed by the EU include the ban on the sale of equipment, technologies and services to Iran's energy sector which is a major source of revenue for the Iranian regime; the same measure refers to the refining industry. New investments in Iran's energy sector have also been also prohibited as a whole. Because of lack of investments due to the sanctions, the production capacity is decreasing, and therefore, Iran cannot effectively increase production.
The situation was deteriorated since last September, when expanded U.S. sanctions on Iran have prompted four of Europe's five biggest oil companies - Total, Statoil, Eni and the RD/Shell - to stop investing in Iran. Later, in October, Inpex, Japan's top oil explorer, announces withdrawal from Iran's Azadegan oil field project to avoid U.S. sanctions.