Iran Says US Sanctions on Any SCO Member Are Pressure on All

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei delivered a sweeping dual message on Tuesday calling on all members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS, and other regional arrangements to intensify their efforts to protect their own sovereignty in the face of American pressure, while flatly calling the US justification for the Larak Island strike a lie and describing Washington's pattern of fabricating pretexts for military aggression as a recurring and deliberate strategy.

SCO Solidarity and the Bishkek Declaration

Responding to a question about whether the Bishkek SCO summit declaration's condemnation of military attacks on Iran and its support for Iranian national sovereignty means Tehran can now count on real technical, military, and defense assistance from SCO partners including Russia and China, Baghaei was measured but pointed in his answer.

"Naturally, when countries agree to announce a position on an issue, they certainly consider themselves bound by its consequences," he said, stopping short of claiming that Russia and China have committed to military assistance but implying that the public endorsement of Iranian sovereignty carries obligations beyond diplomatic formality.

He then expanded the argument into a broader strategic framing that positions American sanctions and secondary pressure not as a bilateral US-Iran dispute but as a threat to every member of every international organization that Iran belongs to. "Our expectation is that all member states of international organizations, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS, and other regional arrangements, with an understanding of the importance of developments and with an understanding of the reality that America's lawbreaking will not remain confined to one country and one region, double their efforts to protect their own rights and preserve their own national sovereignty," Baghaei said.

He made the logic of collective exposure explicit. "Because America's pressures and sanctions against a member country, America's secondary sanctions against a country, are also considered sanctions and pressure against all other countries. We will certainly continue consultations with all countries that value the rule of law, international law, and their own national interests and benefits."

Larak Island Strike: "That Claim Is a Lie"

On the American justification for the strike on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz, Baghaei was categorical and unsparing. The US had claimed the strike was conducted because Iran was preparing to lay mines in the strait.

"That claim is a lie," Baghaei said. "America each time puts forward a pretext to justify its crimes. One should not look at America's claims in isolation and on a case-by-case basis. One must place the crimes they have committed over these two years side by side."

He traced what he described as Washington's pattern of fabricated justifications from the beginning of the conflict. "From the start, the pretext they raised was imminent danger. Then the danger of Iran's nuclear bomb, something they are still repeating. The danger of the nuclear bomb. Therefore, this is a pattern. America each time fabricates a lie to justify its crimes."

Baghaei also addressed directly the claim that Iran was preparing defensive measures on its own territory. "That we, within the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran, prepare ourselves for our own defense and think of the necessary measures, is nobody else's business. The claim they have made is nothing more than a claim. This action was a clear military aggression, and America must be held accountable for these matters, and that will certainly happen."

The Broader Context

Baghaei's dual message on the same day reflects Iran's parallel diplomatic and rhetorical strategy at the conflict's most intense economic and military moment. On the diplomatic front, Tehran is using the Bishkek SCO declaration as evidence that its resistance has produced international legitimacy and institutional backing from the world's two largest non-Western powers. On the military front, it is flatly rejecting the factual basis of the American justification for the Larak Island strike, framing Washington as a serial fabricator of pretexts for aggression rather than a legitimate actor responding to genuine security threats.

The claim that US sanctions on Iran are effectively sanctions on all SCO and BRICS members is Iran's most direct attempt yet to weaponize the secondary sanctions architecture against Washington by making compliance with Operation Economic Outcast politically and institutionally costly for Russia, China, India, and the other major economies that belong to the same multilateral frameworks as Tehran.