Not for the first time, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani criticized the United States on Wednesday for the assassination of Iranian general Quds Force Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani back in January and also took the opportunity to call America a “terrorist” country.
“The worst and most evil government is now ruling the U.S. Which government do you know that assassinates our military commander while on a mission,” said Rouhani during a cabinet meeting, Iran’s Fars News Agency reported.
“The U.S. has always been terrorist, but to this extent is unprecedented,” he said, going on to claim that Washington was blocking medicine to the country as part of its ongoing sanctions on oil and other commodities. Iran is one of the worst-hit countries by the coronavirus.
Separately, the Iranian rial—now toman—hit its lowest rate against the dollar since 2018 on the unofficial market on Tuesday as U.S. sanctions have badly damaged the economy, according to a Reuters report. A dollar was being traded for as much as 170,000 rials, according to the Bonbast.com website.
Meanwhile, Iran’s health ministry announced on Wednesday that 1,985 new coronavirus cases have been diagnosed, along with an additional 50 deaths in the past 24 hours, according to Fars. Some observers surmise that Iran is underreporting its COVID-19 data.
As of Wednesday, the reported death toll in the regime is 6,783.