Iran dismisses new UK sanctions on banks as having no practical effect
Iran’s Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati has dismissed Britain’s latest sanctions on five Iranian banks as having little practical impact, saying British banks have had no Iran-related activity for years due to sanctions.
The British government tightened financial restrictions on Sepah, Melli, Saderat, Persia International and Tejarat banks on Wednesday, introducing a presumption that license applications involving them should be denied.
In an interview on Thursday, Hemmati said the British action amounted to “offering spilled oil to a shrine,” a Persian expression meaning an act that has no practical effect because the loss has already occurred. He said the restrictions would have little practical impact on Iran’s banking system.
The move comes amid Washington’s intensifying illegal sanctions campaign against Iran, including measures imposed in September targeting the country’s aviation and financial networks.
“The US Treasury has reached the end of the road in its economic pressure campaign against Iran, and certain countries are restricting the activities of Iranian banks to demonstrate their compliance with Washington,” Hemmati added.
He noted that the banks targeted by the British measures had already been unable to conduct any international banking operations for years because of US sanctions.
The Central Bank governor said Iran had already been planning to close its inactive overseas banks in order to reduce the costs of maintaining them.
Iranian officials have maintained that successive rounds of illegal US sanctions have failed to achieve the so-called objectives.
On September 1, Hemmati said Iran had adequate foreign-exchange reserves despite US sanctions, adding that the Central Bank was ready to inject up to $2 billion into the foreign-exchange market to curb volatility.
President Masoud Pezeshkian has likewise dismissed the effectiveness of Washington’s economic pressure, saying that the US cannot achieve its objectives through economic coercion.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, took aim at successive US pressure campaigns in a post on X last month, recalling Washington’s claims of imposing the “most crippling sanctions in history” 14 years ago and pursuing “maximum pressure” eight years ago, both of which he said failed. He also pointed to the US demand for “unconditional surrender” five months ago and its latest description of the measures as the “most crushing economic operation ever,” saying the repeated campaigns would again fail.
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