Iran has hit back at new US sanctions, insisting it will not buckle and that the development only undermines the chances of a diplomatic resolution to the crisis in the Middle East.
It comes after the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Friday targeted individuals, exchange houses and companies across several countries that it accused of helping Iran’s Shahr Bank move hundreds of millions of dollars clandestinely.
In a post on X on Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei noted that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had boasted of “suffocating” Iran through sanctions, but insisted the approach would not work. Iran had “demonstrated over decades that it will not be strangled by these exhausted refrains,” Baqaei said, adding that the latest measures only made a diplomatic solution less likely.
The Treasury has said these sanctions are its eighth in 2026 targeting Iran’s alleged shadow-banking system under Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign.
“Iran’s shadow banking system is buckling under Economic Fury, and the regime is running out of ways to move money,” Bessent said in a Treasury statement on Friday. He pledged to expose the networks and cut them off from the US financial system.
Araghchi says US should be held responsible for Hormuz closure
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the international community should hold the United States responsible for the security and economic consequences of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, blaming Washington and Israel for instability in the strategic waterway.
Araghchi made the remarks during a phone call with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, according to Iran’s Foreign Ministry.
He briefed Wadephul on Iran’s ongoing talks with Oman over establishing a safe shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz and said restoring security there would require an end to what Tehran describes as US military aggression, its naval blockade and other alleged violations of American commitments.
Araghchi said insecurity in the strait was caused “exclusively” by US and Israeli military action against Iran.
