Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei issued a statement characterizing US unilateral sanctions on Iran as a violation of the sovereignty of all nations and as such, a violation of the UN Charter. “No State may lawfully compel foreign banks, enterprises, or airports—each subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of its own sovereign—to renounce lawful commerce with a third State,” he wrote on X. “Such secondary sanctions find no foundation in international law. They violate the principle of sovereign equality enshrined in Article 2(1) of the UN Charter and breach the customary prohibition on intervention affirmed by the International Court of Justice in the Nicaragua case. Economic coercion designed to force a sovereign State to alter its lawful policy choices constitutes an outright internationally wrongful act.
“When combined with a naval blockade amounting to military aggression, these demands reduce the sovereignty of all other States to something provisional, conditional, and revocable at the whim of another power. Compliance purchases no immunity or respect; it merely concedes that one’s banks, enterprises, and airports operate only under a foreign license.