MOSCOW (Sputnik) – On Tuesday, the United States announced new sanctions targeting Iran’s military and Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) over Tehran’s ballistic missile program, with a total of 18 entities and individuals being on the sanctions’ list, including one Turkish and four Chinese companies acting as intermediaries. The sanctions were introduced the same day as the State Department re-certified Tehran’s compliance to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) known as the Iranian nuclear deal.
"One the one hand, they present an official report to the Congress saying that Iran is fully committed to its obligations, which urge [US] to respect the JCPOA provisions and prevent them from violating it. On the other hand, under various excuses they are trying to introduce new sanctions that contradict with the spirit, logic and provisions of the JCPOA and are not constructive. The United States as usually behave hypocritically and ambivalently," Rouhani said, as quoted by the IRNA news agency.
Meanwhile, the Iranian parliament adopted a bill Tuesday aimed at countering "US adventurous and terrorist measures in the region" as a response to new sanctions.
On June 16, Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, noted that the US Senate's decision to impose new sanctions was a clear violation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal, signed by Iran, the European Union and the so-called P5+1 group — the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom, plus Germany — in 2015.