US threatens Iran with sanctions for supporting Russia: Blinken

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
5 Nov 2022 11:46
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Iran is threatened with even more sanctions for its supportive stance with Russia, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken threatened Tehran with more sanctions for its alleged military assistance to Russia, repeating charges that Iranian drones were delivered to Russia to use in the Ukraine war.

"We’re also working together to impose sanctions on those supporting President Putin’s war. That includes Iran, whose combat drones are killing Ukrainian civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure, and whose personnel in Crimea are assisting Russia in carrying out these brutal attacks," Blinken claimed on Friday in a press after the foreign ministers meeting of the G7.

Blinken's comments coincided with Amir Saeed Iravani, Iran's ambassador and permanent representative to the UN, firmly rejecting the delivery of drones to Russia and claiming that Tehran has maintained "a position of active neutrality" since the start of the conflict in Ukraine.

“Iran has never produced or supplied, nor does it intend to produce or supply items, materials, equipment, goods, and technology that could contribute to the development of nuclear weapons delivery systems,” he said.

The US special envoy for Iran affairs, Robert Malley, responded to a tweet from the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Friday by making similar charges against Iran, "During my today’s address at the meeting of G7 Foreign Ministers, I demonstrated to them a part of an Iranian-made drone that has recently hit Kyiv. Iran must cease supplying Russia with weapons used to kill Ukrainians or face an even stiffer global pressure and consequences."

"Iran denies it, but the evidence is in plain sight: the UAVs they sold to Russia are being used against Ukrainian civilians. Iran’s leadership may have thought they could get away with helping Russia’s brutal aggression in secret. They could not," Malley claimed.

The US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan made the first anti-Iran allegations in July, claiming that Washington had "information" indicating that the Islamic Republic was getting ready to give Russia "up to several hundred drones, including weapons-capable UAVs on an expedited timeline" for use in the conflict.

Russian and Iranian officials have frequently denied allegations that Tehran gave Moscow drones to use in the conflict in Ukraine.

In a phone conversation with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba on Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian once more denied claims made by the West that those nations had sent drones to Russia for use against Ukraine, warning Ukraine not to be swayed by some extreme European politicians.

He asserted that Tehran is prepared to have technical talks with the participation of military specialists between the two nations without the need for any middlemen and that Tehran's foreign policy is entirely transparent and based on a single standard, which is resistance to war.