Zarif said on Twitter Wednesday that the sanctions the US Treasury has recently imposed on two Iranian banks and companies allegedly linked to Iran’s Basij militia violated at least two ICJ orders: “not impede humanitarian trade & to not aggravate the dispute.”
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Zarif also tweeted a picture of an ICJ court ruling made at the beginning of October, which said the American sanctions imposed in May had violated the terms of the 1955 Treaty of Amity between the US and Iran. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared earlier this month that the US would withdraw from the treaty, calling it an issue that should have been resolved earlier. He did say, however, that the US would “ensure that certain humanitarian transactions involving Iran can and will continue.”
Earlier on Wednesday, the Iranian foreign minister also tweeted that “US addiction to sanctions is out of control,” noting that one of Iran’s sanctioned banks was vital for food and medicine imports in the country.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi condemned the Trump administration’s "spitefulness" in imposing the sanctions, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported Wednesday. He also called this round of sanctions “an insult for the international world order.
US President Donald Trump’s government imposed sanctions on Iran in August after withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear agreement it signed with Tehran along with five other countries, as well as the European Union. The next round of US sanctions is scheduled to take effect on November 4 and will target Iran's oil industry.