US officials face legal action

IRANIAN President Hassan Rouhani said yesterday that the government would file a legal case in Iran against US officials who imposed sanctions on the country as a precursor to action in international courts.

Rouhani said that US sanctions had created difficulties, including a weaker rial currency that had fed into higher inflation. The US reimposed sanctions on Tehran after President Donald Trump chose last May to abandon Iran’s 2015 nuclear accord, negotiated with five other world powers.

Rouhani said he had ordered the ministries of foreign affairs and justice “to file a legal case in Iranian courts against those in America who designed and imposed sanctions on Iran. The sanctions are a crime against humanity. The Americans have only one goal: they want to come back to Iran and rule the nation again.”

He said the government had managed to “put a brake on the fall of rial” but that balance had not yet returned to the foreign currency market.