Bahraini opposition blames Persian Gulf Arab regimes, Israel for new sanctions against Iran

A senior Bahraini opposition figure lambasted the US for its new sanctions against Iran, and took the Persian Gulf Arab regimes and Israel responsible for pressuring the US to impose the new embargos. “The new sanctions against Iran were imposed due to the pressures of the Persian Gulf Arab regimes, the Zionist regime and the US Republicans,” Secretary-General of Bahrain’s National Democratic Association Fazil Abbas told FNA on Monday. “All these measures are adopted to pressure US President Barack Obama to stop the negotiations in which Tehran and Washington are participating,” he added. Under the interim deal reached in Geneva late November between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, France and Britain plus Germany), Iran agreed to stop progress in parts of its nuclear program for six months in return for some $7bln in relief from western sanctions. The United States also agreed to refrain from slapping new sanctions on Iran. After the United States' recent punitive measures, Tehran officials issued serious warnings that Washington is about to ruin the agreement. On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif deplored Washington for breaching the Geneva agreement by blacklisting a dozen companies and individuals for evading US sanctions, and said Tehran will show a well-assessed and goal-oriented reaction to any measure adopted by the world powers in violation of the deal. “The Americans have taken improper measures in the last few days and we have given the appropriate response to them after considering all aspects of the issue,” Zarif said. He stressed that Tehran is seriously pursuing the Geneva negotiations with the G5+1 “and we will, of course, show proper, well-assessed, targeted and smart reaction to any improper and unconstructive measure (of the opposite side even if it doesn’t violate the Geneva agreement)”. Meantime, the foreign minister said the nuclear negotiations is moving on a rough path with many ups and downs before the attainment of the final results, "which is not something unexpected as we had foreseen this since the very first day”.