TEHRAN — Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi has denounced the new U.S. sanctions on Syria, saying that Tehran will maintain and boost economic ties with Damascus.

In a statement on Wednesday, Mousavi condemned the sanctions under the so-called Caesar Act as a violation of international law and humanitarian principles, according to the Foreign Ministry website.

“While the world is gripped by the coronavirus pandemic, the imposition of such inhumane sanctions will only add to the sufferings and pains of Syrian people,” he remarked. 

“As already announced, the Islamic Republic of Iran does not give any credence to such cruel and unilateral sanctions that are passed and imposed on the basis of bullying, and deems them to be economic terrorism against the ordinary people of Syria and a continuation of the U.S. attempts to destabilize that country (Syria),” Mousavi added.

On Wednesday, the U.S. State Department and Treasury released 39 targets for sanctions, including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the bans “the beginning of what will be a sustained campaign of economic and political pressure to deny the Assad regime revenue.”

The sanctions are part of the so-called Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, which came into effect on Wednesday six months after it was signed into law by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned the U.S. sanctions as “a crime against humanity and a flagrant violation of international law that targets the livelihood of the Syrians."

In a statement carried by the official SANA news agency, an official source at the ministry said the Caesar Act reveals the U.S. administration’s disregard for international norms and the level to which its officials have gone down.

The Americans, the source added, are behaving like “gangs and highway robbers.”

The U.S. government, which discriminates against and kills its own citizens, is the last one who has the right to talk about human rights, the source added.

MH/PA