Iran called the Trump administration’s slapping of economic sanctions on the country’s foreign minister “childish” and said they create another obstacle to finding a diplomatic resolution to the escalating tensions between the two countries.

The economic penalties against Javad Zarif follow President Trump’s imposition of sanctions against Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in June.

​“They (Americans) are resorting to childish behavior​. ​… They were claiming every day ‘We want to talk, with no preconditions’ …​ ​and then they sanction (our) foreign minister,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on state television Thursday.

​Zarif, who attended college in the United States and played a critical role in the 2015 nuclear deal that the Obama administration negotiated with world powers, downplayed the sanctions because he has no property or financial interests in the US.

​But Rouhani said the US took the action because ​they fear Zarif’s influence after he spoke to the news media while attending a United Nations conference in July.

“When Dr. Zarif gives an interview in New York, … they say Iran’s foreign minister is misleading our public opinion,” Rouhani said. “What happened to your claims of liberty, freedom of expression and democracy?”

Trump withdrew the US from the deal last year and reimposed sanctions on the country.

Since then, Iran has been pressuring the European countries that remain in the pact to ease the sanctions.

The European Union said it would still ​talk to​ Zarif.

​”​We will continue to work with Mr. Zarif, the top diplomat in Iran and taking into account the importance of keeping diplomatic channels open,” European Commission spokesman Carlos Martín Ruiz de Gordejuela ​said.

​Iran has surpassed the levels limiting how much uranium it can enrich ​and Iran Revolutionary Guard forces have been harassing commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

​In June, Trump called off a military strike after Iran downed an unmanned US surveillance drone.​

With Post wires