US vows to pile more pressures on Iran

JERUSALEM

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday vowed to ramp up pressure on Iran through sanctions.

"We will continue to press more and more and more," Mnuchin said in a joint news conference in West Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

He stressed that an extreme pressure campaign through sanctions is being applied on Tehran and "it is succeeding".

Netanyahu, for his part, said Iran "is working hard to produce ballistic missiles that can reach any target in the Middle East".

The Israeli premier renewed his call for the need to intensify international efforts to confront Iran and tighten the sanctions imposed on it.

Since the U.S. began re-implementing sanctions on Iran since November 2018, Iran has been highly restricted in its oil exports, which continues to have a negative impact on its economy.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu welcomed the success of the U.S. operation to liquidate Daesh terrorist group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria.

Al-Baghdadi, the man who led the Daesh/ISIS terror organization as it swept up large swaths of Iraq and Syria, was killed in a U.S. night-time raid in northwestern Syria, U.S. President Donald Trump announced Sunday.

*Writing by Mahmoud Barakat