Press TV - Iran's ambassador and permanent representative to the UN office in Geneva says the US sanctions and unilateral punitive measures have very broad and serious impacts on the fundamental human rights and are tantamount to crimes against humanity.

Addressing the 42nd session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, Esmaeil Baqaei Hamaneh, said the international community has announced that imposing sanctions are against international law, warning that the continuation of such an unlawful approach by certain countries poses a threat to global peace and security and challenges the structure of the collective security based on the United Nations Charter.

The senior Iranian diplomat also criticized UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet for not including in her report the negative impacts of sanctions on people's rights, calling for a serious measure to relieve the human suffering caused by unilateral sanctions imposed by some countries.

Baqaei invited countries to adopt legal strategies to reduce the impacts of sanctions, saying that the international community's consensus on the need to oppose the extraterritorial implementation of illegal sanctions could play a leading role in this regard.

He also called for practical measures to counter sanctions while stressing the importance of adopting an effective strategy to help lessen the impacts of unilateral bans within the framework of the United Nations.

In an address to a meeting on a public insurance program held on the sidelines of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the United States' sanctions targeting Iran's access to medicines and treatment services amounted to economic terrorism, calling on the international community to compel the US to quit its policy.

"The US' indiscriminate policy of maximum pressure has placed certain restrictions on Iranian citizens," IRNA quoted Zarif as saying.

Tensions have been running high between Iran and the United States since May 2018, when US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew his country from a multilateral nuclear deal with Iran, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and unleashed the “toughest ever” sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Since quitting the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, Trump has been running a "maximum pressure" campaign to force Iran into negotiating a new deal that addresses its ballistic missile program and regional influence.

Iran, which had been fully complying with all of its commitments despite the US withdrawal and the Europeans’ failure to abide by their obligations under the deal, began scaling down its commitments in early July.

An Iranian pharmacology professor has said that the patient cancers in Iran are losing their lives as a result of the US’ economic sanctions.

In a Foreign Policy article, Dr. Abbas Kebriaee Zadeh, professor of toxicology and pharmacology at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, wrote that US sanctions against Iran indirectly hamper the flow of vital medicines for cancer patients in the country.