File photo of Josep Borrell, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission on February 20, 2020.

The European Union will send €20 million in humanitarian aid to Iran, which is subject to US sanctions, to help alleviate the coronavirus outbreak, and will support Tehran's request for IMF financial help, the EU's top diplomat said Monday.

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"We've not been able to provide a lot of humanitarian help but there is some €20 million in the pipeline ... that we expect to be delivered over the next weeks," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a video news conference on Monday.

"We also agree in supporting the request by Iran and also by Venezuela to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to have financial support," he said after a video conference of EU foreign ministers, although he did not give more details.

Iran is the Middle Eastern nation worst hit by the coronavirus. The country's death toll increased Monday to 1,812, including 127 new deaths in the past 24 hours, a health ministry spokesman told state TV on Monday, adding that the country's total number of infected people has reached 23,049.

‘American leaders are lying,’ says Rouhani

Meanwhile Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Monday said the US should lift sanctions if it wants to help Iran to contain the coronavirus outbreak, adding that Iran had no intention of accepting Washington's offer of humanitarian assistance.

"American leaders are lying ... If they want to help Iran, all they need to do is to lift sanctions .... Then we can deal with the coronavirus outbreak," Rouhani said in a televised speech.

Washington has offered humanitarian assistance to its longtime foe. But the country's top authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday rejected the offer.

Tension between the two countries has been running high since 2018, when US President Donald Trump exited Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six world powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy.

Iranian authorities have blamed US sanctions for hampering its efforts to curb the outbreak. Rouhani has urged Americans to call on their government to lift sanctions as Iran fights the coronavirus.

Blunt message from Washington

But the US has sent Iran a blunt message: the spread of the virus will not save it from the US sanctions that are choking off its oil revenues and isolating its economy.

"You have blocked Iran's oil exports, you have stopped Iran's banking transactions ... Your offer of help is the biggest lie in history," Rouhani said.

Although police said millions of people have defied advice to avoid traveling for the Persian New Year holidays, Rouhani praised Iranians for avoiding public places during the holidays. Iran's New Year started on Friday.

Even those who traveled stayed at homes of their relatives, Rouhani said.

Army called in to help

On Sunday, the government ordered shopping centres to close in Tehran, where only pharmacies and shops that provided essential goods remain open.

Iran's Army has been ordered to set up a hospital with 2,000 beds in Tehran "within two days for the treatment of the coronavirus patients", the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported Monday.

The outbreak has infected a number of senior officials, politicians, clerics, members of the elite Revolutionary Guards and dozens of lawmakers in Iran. At least a dozen of them have died from the coronavirus.

"The lawmakers have been infected because they travelled to their towns and were in close contact with people ahead of the parliamentary election on February 21," parliament speaker Ali Larijani told state TV.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)

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