“Iran has never asked and will not ask America to help Tehran in its fight against the outbreak”, he added, accusing the US of “trying to force Tehran to accept negotiations with America”.
The statement comes after the Iranian ambassador to Belgium, Gholamhossein Dehghani, wrote in a letter to the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell last week that the US sanctions are drastically hindering Iran’s ability to combat the spread of COVID-19, which has already killed more than 3,000 people in the country.
"The US unilateral and illegal sanctions imposed on Iran under the guise of the maximum pressure campaign undermine Iran's ability to effectively fight the virus in the long run without international support,” the letter read.
The letter followed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani praising last month the Islamic Republic’s efforts to fight the coronavirus in the face of the US sanctions.
“All countries in the world are currently battling with the virus, but our situation is different from theirs", he said. "The capabilities and measures taken by the government in fighting the coronavirus in the face of the US maximum pressure and the inhuman impacts of the sanctions are already remarkable even when compared with the measures taken by other countries”, he pointed out.
