Foreign Desk Report
BEIJING: China on Monday urged the United States to lift sanctions on Iran immediately amid the Middle Eastern country’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. The escalating outbreak in Iran – the worst-affected country in the Middle East – has killed 853 people and infected 14,991.
“Continued sanction on Iran was against humanitarianism and hampers Iran’s epidemic response & delivery of humanitarian aid by the UN and other organizations,” China’s ministry of foreign affairs said in a tweet bit.ly/33mYq1r. U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally reimposed sanctions on Tehran’s petroleum exports in 2018 after withdrawing the United States from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers.
Iran said last week it had asked the International Monetary Fund for $5 billion in emergency funding to combat the coronavirus outbreak.
Iran’s coronavirus outbreak Monday killed a member of the clerical body that appoints the supreme leader, state media said, taking the death toll among serving and ex-officials to at least 12.
Ayatollah Hashem Bathayi Golpayegani, who was 78, died two days after testing positive for the COVID-19 virus and being hospitalised, state news agency IRNA reported.
The official represented Tehran in the Assembly of Experts, an 88-strong body of clerics that appoints and monitors Iran’s supreme leader.
At least 12 Iranian politicians and officials, both sitting and former, have now died of the illness, and 13 more have been infected and are either in quarantine or being treated.
The country has been scrambling to contain the rapid spread of coronavirus which so far has infected 13,938 people and killed at least 724, according to official figures.
The number of coronavirus deaths and infections have been on the rise ever since the first two fatalities were announced on February 19.
According to the health ministry, the rising trend is due to the increasing number of tests being done.
It says many patients started showing symptoms days after they were infected. Official tolls, which are given every 24 hours, have usually lagged behind reports by local media and have sometimes been contradicted by provincial authorities.
Iran is yet to impose a lockdown but it has temporarily closed parliament, barred pilgrims from gathering at a holy tomb and postponed the second round of legislative elections.
Officials have repeatedly urged citizens to stick to guidelines and stay at home to stop the coronavirus from spreading.
Iran’s death toll from the new coronavirus has reached 853, with 129 new deaths in the past 24 hours, a health ministry official tweeted on Monday, adding that a total of 14,991 people have been infected across Iran.
“In the past 24 hours we had 1,053 confirmed new cases of coronavirus and 129 new deaths,” Alireza Vahabzadeh tweeted.
To contain the outbreak in Iran, one of the deadliest outside of China, officials have called on people to stay at home. “Based on the figures, we have past the peak of the outbreak, but I still suggest people stay at home, and in case of urgency, observe all health protocols,” said President Hassan Rouhani, according to state TV.
A host of senior officials, politicians, doctors, commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guards and clerics have been infected with the virus. Several of them, including two members of a top clerical body, have died, according to state media.
