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Iran in response says new US sanctions on its ballistic missile program have NO legal or moral legitimacy. Tehran has said it will carry on with the missile program despite the new US sanctions.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said that the US sells weaponry worth tens of billions of dollars to their allies in the Middle East each year. He further pointed out that those weapons are used "in war crimes against Palestinian, Lebanese, and most recently Yemeni citizens".
Earlier Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said his country won't trust a country like the US "for the sake of a nuclear deal".
"There is always a reaction for every action. If they violate anything during the implementation of the deal, mechanisms are devised in the deal itself for that and we will follow that. If Americans take action in other areas other than nuclear, they will receive the appropriate response," Hassan Rouhani said.
On Sunday, Tehran released five American-Iranians in a prisoner swap. Three of them have flew to a US base in Germany. The US said it also offered clemency to seven Iranians who were held for sanctions violations.
Reports quoted insiders as saying that negotiations in December over the prisoner exchange delayed the imposition of the latest sanctions on Iran. On Monday, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano arrived in Tehran for talks with President Hassan Rouhani. They'll be discussing the monitoring and verification of Tehran's commitments under the nuclear agreement.
