TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi has condemned the latest round of U.S. sanctions against Russia, describing it as ‘economic terrorism’.

“The Americans’ insanity in extreme use of economic terrorism and unlawful and unilateral punishments against countries that do not think and behave like them is a failed trick that has lost its efficiency and will definitely have no result for that country,” Mousavi said on Friday, the Foreign Ministry website reported.

The comments came after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a new round of sanctions on Russia over accusations that Moscow was involved in the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in Britain last year.

According to a report published by The New York Times, Trump signed on Thursday an executive order whereby the U.S. Treasury would adopt the second round of punitive measures against Moscow following the poisoning attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.

The 66-year-old former Russian double agent and his daughter, 33, were found unconscious outside a restaurant in the southern English city of Salisbury last March. Both were put into a coma following the attack and at least three others were sickened. 

The Thursday move was prompted after leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee sent a bipartisan letter to the White House earlier this week and urged Trump to take action.

“After the first round of sanctions in response to Russia’s use of novichok in an assassination attempt against a private citizen in the United Kingdom, Russia did not provide the assurances required under U.S. law so we are imposing the second round of sanctions,” a senior U.S. administration official familiar with the matter told The Hill.

MH/PA