Iran Has Been ‘Vaccinated’ Against Sanctions, Khamenei Says

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his nation has become immune to Western sanctions and won’t suffer.

“These days, Westerners are making a whole lot of noise regarding sanctions against Iran,” Khamenei was quoted as saying in Tehran today by the official Islamic Republic News Agency. “They don’t understand that throughout the last 30 years they themselves vaccinated the Iranian nation against sanctions.”

Khamenei’s comments come after a European Union embargo on the purchase of Iranian oil came into force on July 1. Those sanctions are in addition to existing U.S.-led limits on trade and banking with Iran.

“The Iranian nation in the past three decades stood against all the conspiracies and sanctions and made progress and now we are 100 percent stronger than 30 years ago,” Khamenei said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Yeganeh Salehi in Tehran via Dubai at

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net