Iran sanctions aimed at unbalancing world: Turkish President

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday lambasted the United States for imposing economic sanctions on Iran, asserting that they are aimed at unbalancing the world.

"US sanctions on Iran are wrong. For us, they are steps aimed at unbalancing the world. We don't want to live in an imperialist world," Erdogan was quoted by Al-Jazeera as saying.

He added that Turkey imports around 10 billion cubic metres of natural gas from Iran.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also slammed the sanctions on Iran by the US, saying that isolating the oil-rich country is "dangerous" and punishing the people of Iran is "not fair".

"While we were asking (for) an exemption from the US, we have also been very frank with them that cornering Iran is not wise. Isolating Iran is dangerous and punishing the Iranian people is not fair," he said.

"Turkey is against sanctions, we don't believe any results can be achieved through the sanctions. I think instead of sanctions, meaningful dialogue and engagement are much more useful," Cavusoglu was quoted by Al-Jazeera as saying.

On November 5, the Donald Trump administration had imposed the "toughest-ever" sanctions on Iran's banking, energy and shipping industries, in a move aimed at altering the "behaviour" of the country's regime.

US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo had stated that the sanctions against Iran were an "unprecedented campaign of economic pressure" with the objective to "starve" the Iranian regime of revenue it uses to fund violent actions throughout the Middle East and around the world.

He had warned Iran to "either do a 180-degree turn from its outlaw course of action and act like a normal country, or it can see its economy crumble.