TEHRAN, August 17. /TASS/. The United States’ decades-long policy of sanctions against and economic pressure on Iran has only added to mutual hatred, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmail Baghaei said.

"The course the United States has been pursuing since August 19, 1953 (when Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh’s government was ousted as a result of the US and UK’s conspiracy - TASS), has yielded no result other than the accumulation of hatred and hostility between the two sides. Over the past 50 years, the United States has driven itself into a trap and a vicious circle of wars, threats, pressure and sanctions," he said at a weekly news conference.

He stressed that Iran has taken all precautionary measures and, if need be, will do everything it can to thwart the United States and Israel’s hostile plans against the Islamic republic.

First sanctions were imposed against Iran following the Islamic revolution in that country in 1978-1979. The sanctions were prompted by the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979. US President Jimmy Carter’s executive order of November 14, 1979 imposed an oil embargo, froze Iranian deposits with American banks and their overseas branches, banned sales of spare part from military equipment to Iran.