The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has asserted that his country refuses transferring any funds to the Iranian regime in order to support Tehran in combatting the COVID-19 outbreak, pointing out that Washington has offered technical assistance to Iran to save the lives of thousands of infected people.
Meanwhile, a US State Department spokesperson described Iran as the official sponsor of terrorism in the world, indicating that it is taking advantage of the Coronavirus crisis to receive more money and support its affiliated militias and armed factions in the region, but not to buy medicines for Iranian people and combat the virus outbreak.
In this context, Pompeo said: “Iranian corrupt officials have a long history of transferring funds for humanitarian goods into their pockets and their terrorist proxies.”
The US statements come as the Iranian government asked the International Monetary Fund for $ 5 billion loan, underlying the need to finance operations for combatting the Coronavirus.
The virus has claimed the lives of around 4,000 Iranian citizens and infected more than 70,000 citizens, according to official statistics, which many health organizations and international medical teams are skeptical of, accusing Iran of hiding the true statistics.
Iranian GP Hadi Yazdani posted on his Twitter account a picture of a message sent by Mohammad Reda Mohaddeth, the Director of Health and Treatment in the city of Astana Ashrafiye, asking the head of the forensic organization to call the Revolutionary Guards’ representative before issuing death certificates to people died by the virus at their homes.
Simultaneously, the data charts show that the Iranian economy is currently suffering from a historical deterioration due to the US sanctions that played a significant role in reducing Tehran’s financial resources, according to CNN.
The International Institute for Nuclear Research had revealed earlier that the negative effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on the Iranian economy, has exceeded the impact of the sanctions imposed on Iran by the US during the past months against the background of Iranian nuclear activities.
In its report, the institute pointed out that the pandemic has dealt a severe blow to the Iranian economy, especially with the decline in global oil prices, as it oil production was considered as the backbone of Iranian treasury incomes.
During the past few weeks, the Iranian economy has witnessed a record decline compared to the deterioration which followed the US sanctions, according to the Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post.
In late February, an international regulatory agency specializing in fighting dirty money, listed Iran on its blacklist, after Tehran failed to comply with international rules to combat financing terrorism.
Media outlets said that the decision came after more than three years of warnings by the Paris-based Financial Action Group, urging Tehran to enact laws against financing terrorism.
Yet, the agency had left the door open to Iran, saying that “countries should also be able to implement countermeasures, independently of any call from the Financial Action Group to do so.”
A few days ago, Iran recovered the amount of $ 1.6 billion that was frozen in Luxembourg, according to a judicial decision issued there.
“The freed funds were frozen in Luxembourg about 5 years ago, however, thanks to judicial efforts exerted by the Central Bank of Iran, the US efforts to seize Iranian frozen funds in Europe have been thwarted,” the Governor of the Central Bank of Iran said.
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