The U.S. Senate's decision to impose new sanctions on Iran is an "unquestionable" violation of a nuclear deal reached in 2015 between Tehran and six major powers including the United States, Iranian media quoted a senior Iranian official as saying.
The Senate approved on Thursday the sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile program and other activities not related to the international nuclear agreement.
"The U.S. Senate’s move is unquestionably in breach of both the spirit and the letter of the nuclear deal," Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was reported by media as saying on Friday.
"The Iranian committee tasked with monitoring the accord will certainly examine the congressional move and come up with a decent response."
Velayati added that the U.S., by imposing new sanctions, tries to cover up repeated defeats it has suffered from Iran, in Iraq and Syria.
After Senate approval, the sanctions bill will go to the House of Representatives. However, the Iran sanctions were voted in the Senate as a package together with the new Russia sanctions. It is not clear that the latter would have such an overwhelming support in the House as it did in the Senate.