Russian official raps west's sanctions against Iran as illegal, inhuman

President of Russia’s National and International Security Foundation Leonid Shershnev lashed out at the western powers for their "illegal and inhuman" sanctions against Tehran, saying that pressures are targeted at the Iranian people and not the government. Shershnev said that banning medicine sales to Iran under the false allegation that the country seeks to develop nuclear weapons is an inhumane approach adopted by the West against Iranian people and reveals the anti-human nature of the United States and its allies. The West is antagonizing certain countries by imposing embargoes on them, Shershnev told the Islamic republic news agency Saturday, adding many nations in the world, particularly Muslim nations, hate the West because of its sanctions policy. Washington and its European allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry. Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions and the western embargos for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment. After the UN Security Council ratified a sanctions resolution against Iran on June 9, 2010, the United States and the European Union imposed further unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program, mostly targeting the country's energy and banking sectors. Tehran has always dismissed West's pressures and stressed that sanctions and embargos merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path of progress.