Iran will respond to enmity by weathering sanctions: Ahmadinejad

TEHRAN,July 4(MNA) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran will respond to hostile policies of the enemy by weathering sanctions. “We should resist pressure, come through this juncture victoriously, and respond to hostile policies of the enemy by weathering sanctions,” Ahmadinejad said during a meeting with Intelligence Ministry officials in Tehran on Tuesday. The president made the remarks in reference to the European Union’s oil embargo on Iran that took effect on July 1 and a new U.S. law that penalizes countries that do business with the Central Bank of Iran by denying their banks access to the United States market. The law came into force on June 28. “The sanctions imposed on our country are the most severe and strictest sanctions ever imposed on a country. But the enemies’ assumption that they can put Iran in a weak position through these sanctions is false and is the result of their materialistic calculations,” he said. Elsewhere in his remarks, Ahmadinejad said, “We should regard the sanctions as an opportunity to eliminate the country’s current reliance on oil revenues and take away from the enemy the use of oil as a weapon for imposing sanctions.”