Tehran, October 29 (RHC)-- Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has lashed out at the United States for pursuing double standards toward the Islamic Republic, saying new regulations adopted by the White House would only worsen economic terrorism targeting the Iranian people.

"Contrary to its deceptive claims, new U.S. regulations will aggravate #EconomicTerrorism on ordinary Iranians," Zarif said in a post on his official Twitter account.

The Iranian foreign minister pointed to earlier claims by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said in November last year that it is in Iran's best interests to toe the line and listen to Washington or else its people will pay the price.

Pompeo told BBC Persian that Iranian officials have to "make a decision that they want their people to eat."

Later in January, the U.S. secretary of state said Washington’s tough sanctions against the Islamic Republic were aimed at giving the Iranian people a chance to have better lives.  "The sanctions on Iran have this ultimate goal: creating an outcome where the Iranian people can have better lives than they have today," Pompeo told Newsmax TV.

The United States claims it has decided to facilitate sales of food and medicine to Iran which is struggling under the draconian American sanctions.  The department said it had created a new humanitarian mechanism to ensure shipments of food and medicine can continue to be delivered to Iran, adding it would allow "permissible trade" to support the Iranian people while maintaining its “maximum pressure” policy against the Iranian government. 

In a meeting with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on the sidelines of the 74th session of the General Assembly in New York in September, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani slammed the United Nations for keeping quiet about the crimes the U.S. has been committing against the Iranian nation through the economic terrorism campaign, calling on the world body to break the silence and shoulder its responsibilities.

Referring to Washington’s harsh campaign of economic pressure and sanctions against the Islamic Republic, the president said “an aggressor government is committing all these crimes against an entire nation, while the UN has remained tight-lipped.”  He added that this “shame will remain in history.”