Iran said Thursday it would respond to any "interventionist" measures by the United States, after U.S. officials said the Treasury Department was preparing new sanctions connected to Iran's ballistic missile program.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari called the planned sanctions "unilateral, arbitrary and illegal."
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the planned move, said the sanctions will likely be formally announced this week and include about 12 people and companies in Iran, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates.
The sanctions would call on U.S. banks to freeze the assets of those on the list and bar individuals and companies in the U.S. from doing business with them, according to the Journal.
Iran test-fired missiles in October and November. The U.S. and France said the October launch violated a U.N. Security Council resolution banning Iranian development of a ballistic missile. Iran rejected the allegations, saying the sanctions only applied to missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and that their missiles had no such capability.
U.S. experts said the only purpose of the missile would be to deliver a nuclear warhead.