Iran asks UN court to lift U.S. sanctions

Iran went to the United Nations’ highest court Monday in a bid to have U.S. sanctions lifted following President Donald Trump’s decision earlier this year to re-impose them, calling the move “naked economic aggression.”

Iran filed the case with the International Court of Justice in July, claiming that sanctions the Trump administration imposed on May 8 breach a 1955 bilateral agreement known as the Treaty of Amity that regulates economic and consular ties between the two countries.

At hearings that started Monday at the court’s headquarters in The Hague, Tehran asked judges to urgently suspend the sanctions to protect Iranian interests while the case challenging their legality is being heard — a process that can take years.

In a statement, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the legal move an attempt by Tehran “to interfere with the sovereign rights of the United States to take lawful actions, including re-imposition of sanctions, which are necessary to protect our national security.”

Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal imposed restrictions on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of most U.S. and international sanctions against Tehran.

However, the deal came with time limits and did not address Iran’s ballistic missile program or its regional policies in Syria and elsewhere. Trump has repeatedly pointed to those omissions.