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Rouhani calls US sanctions on Iran 'crime against humanity'

Iran's president has slammed the US economic sanctions on food and medical supplies for Iran but promised that Tehran will defeat Washington in the "economic war."
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani attends a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a session of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council In Yerevan, Armenia October 1, 2019. Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. - RC125DBD8560

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has once again slammed the United States for abandoning the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, a departure that reinstated onerous economic sanctions on his country and has dramatically reduced the Iranian public's purchasing power. Rouhani described the decision as a "disgrace" for the United States. "Even more disgraceful was the act of imposing sanctions on food and medicines destined for Iranians," he said in his Oct. 15 address to a summit of the World Health Organization's Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean in Tehran.

Despite denouncing those sanctions as "a crime against humanity," Rouhani downplayed their impact, boasting about what he said was Iran's 95% self-sufficiency in supplying its domestic pharmaceutical demand.

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