“I can only say we are banging our heads against a wall with this approach… Iran will not buckle under these sanctions,” the chairman of the British-Iranian Chamber of Commerce said.
Lord Lamont added that the sanctions have hit British companies as they are being replaced by their Asian counterparts in Iran.
“The problem with sanctions is that we think we’re imposing a cost on them [Iran] but we’re also imposing a cost on ourselves in terms of lost jobs, lost output and in some cases bankruptcy of the firms involved,” he explained.
The US, Britain, Canada and Italy imposed new sanctions on Iran’s banking system and energy sector after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released its latest report on Tehran’s nuclear program on November 8.
While London terminated all contacts between the UK’s financial system and the entire Iranian banking system, Washington imposed sanctions targeting Iran’s oil and petrochemical industry and the Iranian companies supplying Tehran’s nuclear program.
The United States, Israel and some of their allies accuse Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear program and have used this pretext to impose four rounds of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Iran has refuted the allegations, arguing that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Tehran is entitled to use nuclear technology for peaceful use.
MYA/MB/PKH/IS
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