The spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry, Saeed Khatibzadeh, dismissed new sanctions announced by the US Treasury against an Iranian national and his four companies connected to Tehran's missile program.

"It is yet another indication of the US government's ill intentions toward the Iranian nation," Khatibzadeh said in a statement on March 31.

The US Treasury stated on Wednesday that it had levied the punitive measures as it was convinced the firms and its owner had supported Iran in its development of ballistic missiles. Those missiles, US officials said, allegedly are being used by the Islamic Republic in its ambitious regional activities and in pursuit of deeper influence, a policy that Tehran has defiantly defended as "strategic."  

According to the Iranian spokesperson, the new sanctions came "in continuum of the failed maximum pressure policy," a reference to an intense sanctions regime introduced by former President Donald Trump's administration with the aim of squeezing Iran's economy. Khatibzadeh further rejected the reasoning behind the latest sanctions as "baseless allegations" applied as a "pressure tool against the Iranian nation."