Tasnim � The spokesman for the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) shrugged off recent sanctions imposed by Washington against Tehran and the security body, saying that such embargoes can never hamper the development of the country�s defense program.

In remarks released on Wednesday, General Ramezan Sharif pointed to the fresh sanctions imposed against the IRGC by the US Treasury�s Office of Foreign Assets Control and said that over the past 39 years after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, such sanctions have been imposed against the country�s defense sector by the US and its allies.

However, he added, the sanctions have never put pressure on the IRGC in the military sectors.

The spokesman further emphasized that the US is fully aware of the ineffectiveness of the sanctions because one of the main principles of the country�s armed forces is self-sufficiency and reliance on domestic capacities.

In early August, Donald Trump signed into law one of the most wide-ranging sanctions measures of the last five years, known as Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which enhances three separate sanctions programs targeting Iran, Russia and North Korea.

CAATSA expands US sanctions targeting Iran's ballistic missile program and enhances the legal basis for existing sanctions targeting the IRGC. It would also establish an additional US legal basis for sanctions targeting IRGC on the allegations of support for terrorism.

The US has imposed the fresh sanctions against Iran in flagrant defiance of the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) reached the 159-page nuclear agreement in July 2015 and started to implement it in January 2016.

Since the historic deal was signed in Vienna, the IAEA has repeatedly confirmed the Islamic Republic�s compliance with its commitments under the JCPOA, but some other parties, especially the US, have failed to live up to their undertakings.

In mid-September, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei lambasted the US for violating the JCPOA, warning that any �wrong move� concerning the nuclear deal would draw reactions from Iran.