TEHRAN -- Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif says the U.S. continues to target the Iranian nation which marked the downing of an Iranian passenger plane on Saturday.
“33 years ago today, U.S. shot down Iran Air 655,” he tweeted.
On July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes warship fired two missiles at an Iran Air Airbus A300B2, which was flying over the Strait of Hormuz from the port city of Bandar Abbas to Dubai, carrying 274 passengers and 16 crew members.
Following the attack, the plane disintegrated and crashed into the Persian Gulf waters, killing all the 290 on board, among them 66 children.
American officials claimed that their warship had mistaken the civilian aircraft for a warplane.
“As a young diplomat, I witnessed U.S. refusal to apologize over the human tragedy it caused,” Zarif said.
“U.S. violence against Iranians began long before & continues today with Economic Terrorism against our people,” the top diplomat concluded.
By economic terrorism, the foreign minister was referring to the U.S. push through sanctions to prevent the Islamic Republic from conducting any trade activity with the outside world.
The sanctions have been coming in the way of the country’s even buying foodstuffs and medicine among other vital items. The global coronavirus’ pandemic has not triggered Washington to suspend the bans either.
The United States has been deploying sanctions against Iran since the 1979 victory of the country’s Islamic Revolution. It temporarily lifted some of the bans after entering a multilateral nuclear agreement with Iran and others in 2015, but returned the coercive measures only three years later, when it illegally quit the deal.
The U.S. sustains its inhumane campaign despite several calls on it by the United Nations to lift the measures, and an International Court of Justice ruling obliging it to do the same.