Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has urged Muslim nations to deepen financial and trade cooperation to fight what he described as US economic hegemony.
He used an Islamic conference in Malaysia on Thursday as a platform to decry American sanctions against his country.
Rouhani repeated his assertion that the US has used economic sanctions as the “main tools of domineering hegemony and bullying” of other nations.
Iran has been gripped by violent protests since last month amid anger over a sharp hike in petrol prices following US sanctions after Washington withdrew last year from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
There has been a wave of arrests in Iran and rights group Amnesty International has said at least 304 people were killed in the anti-government protests.
Rouhani said the US sought to cripple Iran with the “heaviest sanctions” but the country’s economy is on the mend and moving away from reliance on oil.
“The Muslim world should be designing measures to save themselves from the domination of the United States dollar and the American financial regime,” he said at the opening ceremony of the three-day conference that included leaders from Turkey, Qatar and host Malaysia.
Read the article in the Canberra Times.