In an interview with the website of the Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, Seyed Reza Mirtaher referred to the remarks of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov regarding the launch of a campaign to condemn the US unilateral sanctions at the United Nations and the need to put an end to it and said: The United States has been imposing sanctions on its opposition and rival countries since the twentieth century and now has been recognized as the biggest sanctioning country in the world.

He said that during the Trump administration, by adopting a unilateral policy and focusing on the slogan ‘America First’, we saw that sanctions were turned into the greatest tool for the United States to be used against the opposition countries and even its partners, adding: This situation created a lot of anomalies in the international system, either the international economy and the world trade system, or the international relations.

The international affairs expert, referring to the imposition of sanctions on China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, said: The global system of sanctions, imposed by the West in general and the United States in particular, has essentially led to the creation of a kind of international movement at the world level to confront sanctions.

He continued: One of the obvious measures in this regard was the action of Venezuela in early December last year, during which Mr. Samuel Moncada, Venezuela’s representative to the United Nations, called for the cooperation of the US-sanctioned countries to counter those unilateral measures and draw up a plan in this regard. At the same time, Russia, as a country that has greatly suffered due to Western sanctions, has called for the campaign, and the foreign minister of that country has stressed that he will talk with other partners in the BRICS group and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to form a club of the sanctioned countries to play an active role.

Mirtaher, referring to the far-reaching effects of US sanctions against countries, especially during the Coronavirus epidemic, which has caused numerous problems in gaining access to medicine and medical equipment and even the Coronavirus vaccine, said: Deprivation of access to medical equipment, despite the claims that can be made, has led to the shaping of an international movement to criticize sanctions. Of course, US sanctions in the current context also include that country’s friends, as we have witnessed in the case of the European Union and Turkey.

As for the effectiveness of the talks between sanctioned countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, Russia and Syria, he said: No steps have been taken yet to put this campaign or club into operation, and we are mostly seeing statements issued by the UN member states; but unfortunately, we do not yet have an effective international movement to have a specific function in this field and can specifically counter US sanctions.

The international affairs expert, stressing the need to form a club of sanctioned countries, stated: What we are witnessing so far has emerged more as a political stance of countries, an issue that is equally noteworthy, and we are witnessing a global movement that condemns the US measures and sanctions and calls for an end to it.

Mirtaher considered the remarks of the Russian Foreign Minister regarding the creation of a campaign in the United Nations to condemn the sanctions of the Western countries as an effective step in this direction and emphasized: Any action taken to create an organization or coordinated positions of countries to protest or try to lift unilateral US sanctions would be effective.