British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper announced, in a statement to the House of Commons that the U.K. government will be imposing additional sanctions on Iran as punishment for the “brutal repression” of “grassroots protests.”
“On Friday, the Prime Minister joined with the German Chancellor and French President in condemnation of this violence and to call for an end to the violence,” she said. “It is a message. I have also delivered this message directly to the Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi yesterday. Setting out the U.K.’s total abhorrence at the killings, the violence, and the repression that we are seeing. Urging them urgently to change course.
“And today as further reports come through, the Minister for the Middle East, at my instruction, has summoned the Iranian ambassador to underline the gravity of this moment and to call on Iran to answer for the horrific reports that we are hearing.”
The most important element, of the measures that Cooper lists that the British government will be taking against Iran, is “the co-ordinated economic and diplomatic pressure on this regime” in the form of additional sanctions. “Overall, this government has imposed over 220 Iran sanctions designations since coming into office,” she said, including the snapback of UN sanctions “because of the repeated failure by the Iranian regime to comply with its nuclear commitments.” This in spite of the fact that it was U.S. President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran in 2018 and the imposition of unilateral “maximum pressure” sanctions that broke the agreement in the first place.
