The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) has described sanctions as "common tool" used by the global imperialist system to force independent nations into submission.
“The entire policy led by the imperialist system rests on using threats and supporting aggressive attitudes,” Mohammad Eslami said in the northern Iranian province of Mazandaran on Thursday.
“And their common and ostentatious tool [to realize this purpose is to use] sanctions for [bringing about] submission so they can cripple a nation, bring it to its knees, and neutralize it so they can achieve apparent victory,” he added.
The United States and its allies have brought Iran under the most extensive array of sanctions, accusing the country of deviation in its nuclear energy program towards, what they allege, military purposes.
The Islamic Republic has routinely rejected the accusations, saying it does not and will never pursue acquiring nuclear weapons in line with moral and religious standards.
Inspections carried out by the International Atomic Energy Agency have also verified the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear activities.
Washington removed some of the sanctions following conclusion of nuclear agreement between Tehran and world countries in 2015, but returned the bans three years later after ditching the deal in a unilateral and unlawful move.
The global arrogance, including the US, has announced that it has chosen to wage an economic war against Iran so the Islamic Republic’s currency is devaluated and the Iranian people come under pressure, he added.
“[Through these measures,] the United States seeks to say that its dominance is mandatory and that it rules the world,” Eslami said.
The Iranian nation, however, should be alert and insightful and heed the directives of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei so it can reduce its vulnerability to damage and the influence being exercised by the enemies, he noted.
‘They fear capacity of Iran’s nuclear industry’
Elsewhere in his remarks, Eslami said what the global arrogance and Zionist system feared was not the potential of Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.
“[They actually] fear the power of the capacity of Iran’s nuclear industry,” he said, citing the adversaries’ remarks concerning the country’s underway construction of a nuclear power plant and its potential of building more such facilities.
The enemies were alarmed by the country’s scientific, industrial, and economic power, the official added.
Eslami also called for moving towards reducing the country’s economic dependence on oil and enabling the emergence of a knowledge-based economy.
He said the young Iranian generation was investing efforts towards realization of this purpose so it could contribute to the enhancement of the country’s economic, industrial, and productive efficiency.