Iranian President Hassan Rouhani denounced Saturday that U.S. sanctions over the Islamic republic’s nuclear program continue to prevent the import of coronavirus vaccines.
“We order the vaccines, we also pay for them, but before the import we are told that the manufacturers are still afraid of US sanctions,” the president has lamented.
“This economic terrorism that (former U.S. President Donald) Trump has imposed on us is still going on,” the president added about the current crisis in Iran, still facing serious trade problems, especially with regard to vital vaccines.
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Rouhani did not elaborate, but was apparently referring to problems with India, where prosecutors last week blocked the export of 370,000 doses last week due to U.S. sanctions.
Trump withdrew in 2018 from the Vienna nuclear deal, designed to restrict Iran’s nuclear activities, and imposed new economic sanctions against the country.
Since Joe Biden came to the White House there have been hints of possible negotiations on a U.S. return to the deal, but Tehran is also hoping for the lifting of at least part of the sanctions.
However, this has not been the case. “Therefore,” Rouhani has added, although we are doing our best to make the mass vaccinations happen as quickly as possible, not everything is under our control.”
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Iran has recorded more than 62,000 COVID-19-related deaths and more than 1.8 million coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic.
So far, the country has been able to import about two million doses of vaccines from Russia, China and India, which allowed for vaccination mainly in the health sector.
