US sanctions Iran after ballistic missile test
Donald Trump: 'Iran is playing with fire – they don’t appreciate how ‘kind’ President Obama was to them. Not me!'
The United States has imposed fresh sanctions on Iran following its recent ballistic missile test. The US Treasury Department said it was applying sanctions on 13 people and 12 companies, including groups in China, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates. Among the newly sanctioned groups are members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
US President Donald Trump tweeted: “Iran is playing with fire – they don’t appreciate how ‘kind’ President Obama was to them. Not me!”
John Smith, the Treasury Department’s acting sanctions chief, said in a statement: “Iran’s continued support for terrorism and development of its ballistic missile programme poses a threat to the region, to our partners worldwide and to the United States”.
US National Security Adviser Michael Flynn warned the US would no longer tolerate Iran’s “lawless behaviour” following its missile test last Sunday.
He said that such conduct has only increased since the “very favourable” nuclear deal that six world powers struck two years ago with Iran to halt its nuclear programme.
Iran immediately hit back, lambasting the threats as coming from “an inexperienced person” and pledging to impose reciprocal measures.
Ali Akbar Velayati, a top advisor to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted by Reuters as saying that “the American government will understand that threatening Iran is useless”.
“This is not the first time that an inexperienced person has threatened Iran. Iran does not need permission from any country to defend itself,” he said.
The Iranian foreign ministry later announced that Tehran would "impose legal restrictions on a number of American individuals and companies which have been involved in creating and supporting extremist terrorist groups or are helping in the killing and oppression of defenceless people in the region". It said that the names would be announced later.
The sanctions came as the US moved a Navy destroyer closer to the coast of Yemen to guard waterways from the Iran-aligned Houthi militia rebels, Reuters news agency reports.
Also on Friday, Iran announced a ban against US wrestlers from competing at a championship in the western Iranian city of Kermanshah later this month. The ban was in response to Trump's executive order temporarily barring travel to the US for Iranian citizens, as well as citizens of six other majority-Muslim countries.
