External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday said India only abides by sanctions imposed by the United Nations and not by other countries, in a reference to United States sanctions on Iran, News18 reported.
“We don’t make our foreign policy under pressure from other countries,” she told reporters at a press conference, when asked whether US sanctions against Iran and Venezuela would affect India, AFP reported. “We believe in UN sanctions but not in country-specific sanctions.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Dr Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is currently in New Delhi on a one-day visit, met Swaraj for delegation-level talks. “We [India and Iran] have had very good relations in the past and we expect to continue these relations,” he told ANI ahead of his meeting with Swaraj.
Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump pulled out of a nuclear agreement with Iran signed in 2015 during Barack Obama’s tenure and had ordered reimposing sanctions against Tehran suspended under the 2015 accord. The nuclear deal, signed by the five permanent members of the United Nations, Germany, the European Union and Iran, had lifted decades-old sanctions on Tehran on the promise that it would tone down its nuclear programme considerably.
On May 22, the US imposed new sanctions on Venezuela to prevent President Nicolas Maduro from selling off government debt. The Donald Trump administration, which refused to recognise Maduro’s victory in the elections on Sunday, had also imposed sanctions ahead of the presidential polls.
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