U.S. State Department Explains: The Real Reasons Behind Iran’s Regime Efforts to Lift Sanctions

The U.S. State Department Spokesperson’s Office issued a statement on the evening of Monday, April 6, while referencing the Islamic Republic regime’s infiltration campaign and its recent activities to lift sanctions, detailing the reasons for the necessity of maintaining and continuing sanctions imposed against Iran.

At the beginning of this statement, remarks made by President Trump on April 2, 2020, to the press were republished. President Trump had said: “I think [the people of] Iran love America. I think they love being free. … They love our values. … If they want help in fighting the virus [coronavirus], we have the best medical experts in the world. We are willing to send [these doctors] to [Iran].”

The statement reads: “The objective of Iran’s regime’s covert and quiet foreign infiltration campaign to lift sanctions is not the well-being and health of the Iranian people, but rather to obtain money for its terrorist activities.”

The statement then outlines some of the costs the Islamic Republic has spent on terrorist activities and objectives in recent years, stating: “While Iran’s healthcare system suffers severely from budget shortages, the regime has spent over $16 billion since 2012 to finance its terrorist proxy forces outside the country. This led Iran’s Health Minister to resign in protest of the continuous budget cuts to the health sector in January 2019.”

Later in the statement, by noting that “sanctions do not prevent aid from reaching Iran,” it is emphasized that the United States has provided extensive licenses for the sale of food, agricultural products, medicines, and medical equipment from the United States to Iran.

The U.S. State Department, referring to recent statements by Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s President, claiming “the failure of American sanctions to prevent [Iran’s regime] efforts to combat the coronavirus,” emphasized that official Iranian documents show that Iranian pharmaceutical companies and healthcare services have been able to import coronavirus test kits since January.

The article also addresses topics such as Iran’s regime’s rejection of American humanitarian aid and medical equipment offers, as well as the expulsion of a Doctors Without Borders team from Iran, while simultaneously continuing the Islamic Republic’s requests to lift sanctions, stating: “It is clear that their priority is not access to medicine, but access to cash.”

The State Department further references the inadvertent disclosure of this matter by Hassan Rouhani in one of the government cabinet sessions held in late March, noting that Rouhani, while appreciating the efforts of Iran’s Foreign Ministry to influence public opinion and say “no” to sanctions, stated that “the objective of our efforts is to recover confiscated funds in other countries [by Iran].”

The statement also addresses the creation of a website by Iran’s government in early March aimed at coordinating government propaganda about coronavirus and efforts to end American sanctions, as well as the promotion of this website’s content by Iranian diplomatic missions to encourage public opinion in other countries to oppose American sanctions.

The U.S. State Department, while emphasizing that Iran’s regime has sufficient funds to address the coronavirus pandemic in the country, states that Khamenei, instead of approving the request of parliament members and Iran’s President to withdraw from Iran’s National Development Fund, doubled the Basij budget and increased the Revolutionary Guards budget by 33 percent, and “Iran’s regime has long prioritized proxy forces instead of prioritizing the Iranian people.”

Later in the statement, the State Department, by referencing other matters such as the killing of 1,500 Iranians in November protests by the regime’s forces, the embezzlement and disappearance of over $1 billion in funds that should have been used to provide healthcare services and obtain medical equipment for the Iranian people, fake humanitarian organizations and companies of Iran’s regime that actually send hundreds of millions of dollars for Hezbollah and Hamas through the Revolutionary Guards and Quds Force, and many other instances of the regime’s incompetence and wrongdoings, states: “The Iranian people are the first to reject this regime’s excuses.”

The statement, by referring to graffiti in the outskirts of Tehran with slogans such as “The real coronavirus is the Islamic Republic,” adds: “When Khamenei accused the United States of using the coronavirus as a biological weapon, the most well-known Twitter hashtags in Iran were KhameneiVirus and IslamicRepublicVirus.”

The statement concludes: “The United States will continue to support the needs and aspirations of the Iranian people – who have been the longest-suffering victims of Iran’s regime.”