Charges against the US after the assault on the Capitol and speaks of “electoral fiasco”
The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, announced this Friday the ban on the importation of coronavirus vaccines produced in the United States and the United Kingdom and stressed that he “does not trust” these countries.
“I have already told government officials and now I announce it publicly. The importation of American and British vaccines is prohibited,” he has said. “I don’t trust them. Sometimes they want to try vaccines in other countries,” he added.
“If the Americans had managed to produce a vaccine, they would not face the chaos they now suffer in their country. In one day about 4,000 people have died from coronavirus,” he argued, after the North American country has exceeded this threshold for the first time of deceased in one day.
Also, Khamenei has praised the vaccine that is being developed by Iranian scientists and has said that it is “a source of pride”. “The vaccine has started clinical trials in humans. God willing, there will be a better version in Iran,” he said.
For his part, he has charged the United States for the assault on the Capitol by supporters of the US President, Donald Trump, and has spoken of “an electoral fiasco.” “Today we can see what the great idol has become. This is his democracy,” he said, as reported by the Iranian television channel Press TV.
“These are their Human Rights. They kill a black person every couple of hours and the murderer is not tried. Those are the American values that today are ridiculed. This is their paralyzed economy,” he argued, before pointing out that ” strangely, some still adore America. “
Likewise, he has once again demanded the withdrawal of the sanctions imposed by the United States on the country and has reiterated that Iran is not in a hurry to comply with all its obligations in the 2015 nuclear agreement if the rest of the countries do not.
“If the sanctions are withdrawn, the return of the United States to the agreement – which it abandoned unilaterally in 2018 – will mean something,” he explained. “However, if the sanctions are not withdrawn, his return to the agreement will be to our detriment,” he added.
“When the other party does not apply any of its commitments, it does not make sense for Iran to comply with all of its commitments,” said Khamenei, who has stated that the country will comply with all the clauses if the other signatory countries do the same.
The Iranian authorities have started this week to enrich uranium to 20 percent and have assured that it has the capacity to do so to 60 percent, although the country’s Foreign Minister, Mohamad Yavad Zarif, said that this step is “reversible.”
Iran has announced to date the withdrawal of its commitments on several of the points of the nuclear agreement in response to the decision of the United States to withdraw from it and reimpose its unilateral sanctions, which has caused fear in the rest of the signatories of a possible collapse of the pact.
Tensions have increased as a result of the murder in late November of scientist Mohsen Fajrizadé, considered the head of the Iranian nuclear program, an event that Tehran has blamed on Israel, which has not commented on these accusations.
Despite this, the Iranian authorities have expressed the hope that Biden – Barack Obama’s vice president at the time of the signing of the agreement – can promote Washington’s return to the pact and the withdrawal of sanctions, considered by Tehran as a condition indispensable for full compliance with the clauses by Iran.
