Press TV - President Hassan Rouhani says the era of pressure and sanctions against the Iranian nation will sooner or later be over as the Islamic Republic’s enemies have realized that they cannot bend Iranians to their will.

“I declare here unequivocally that the era of pressure and sanctions against the Iranian nation will come to an end,” the president said, addressing an event held to mark the National Day of Petrochemical Industries in Tehran on Monday, IRNA reported.

“The reason for that is that our ill-wishers and enemies have found out that they cannot force us to capitulate under maximum pressure,” he noted.

The United States launched the “maximum pressure” campaign under President Donald Trump. The push saw it leaving a multilateral and United Nations-ratified nuclear agreement with the Islamic Republic last year, and returning the sanctions that the deal had lifted.

Washington then began pressuring its allies to toe its sanction line by halting trade with Tehran.

Rouhani described the campaign as “an all-out economic war,” which not only had fallen short of its objective, but also would continue to prove futile.

He said efforts to rally international support behind the campaign and put a legal spin on it did not bear fruit either.

“They sought to turn this war into a political one, and force all the world to stand behind them against us, but failed,” the president noted.

“They sought to turn this war into a legal one by having the UN and international institutions [move to] condemn us. They failed in the latter bid too,” he added.

Even the US’s closest allies, Rouhani said, confirm this that Washington has committed a mistake in undertaking the campaign and fallen short of its objectives.

Rouhani also rejected criticism of under-performance by his administration, saying some of the pledges which had been given at the onset of the government’s formation were given “in peacetime.”

“It is wartime now, which entails its own circumstances wherever in the world it may be,” the president said.

He reminded though that Iran had not been the one to launch the war, and had not even provided any incentive for it.

He also hailed the Iranian people for coming out victorious in the face of the US-led campaign through their “brave and attentive” performance, and their “alertness,” which saw them telling friend and foe apart, and not deviate from their path.

The Iranian people did not “roll out the red carpet” and welcome foreign interference in the country, something that the enemies had expected would happen within five to six months of the launch of the campaign, he said.