Health minister urges WHO to remove medical sanctions against Iran

Iranian Health Minister Seyed Hassan Hashemi in a meeting with the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Ala Alwan called on the international body to boost efforts to remove the cruel sanctions imposed by the West against pharmaceutical exports to Iran. "Despite the fact that international circles claim that they have not embargoed exports of medicine and medical equipment to Iran, unfortunately these sanctions are already in place, although indirectly," Hashemi said during the meeting in Tehran on Saturday. "Actually, sanctions against (the Iranian) banks somehow affect the (supply and export of) medicines and medical equipment (to Iran)," he added. Hashemi called on Alwan to make the necessary consultations with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to pave the ground for lifting the sanctions against, at least, one of the Iranian banks in a bid to allow the Islamic Republic to provide the needed medicine and medical equipment for the people. Washington and its western 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. Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path. Tehran has repeatedly said that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities.