Iran is to take a complaint over a US ban on the sale of Persian rugs to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Islamic Republic News Agency reported on July 29.

Persian rug sales in the US were banned by the Clinton administration in the mid-1990s, but following the nuclear deal signed in late 2015 by Iran and six world powers including the US the sanction was rescinded.

Since US President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the nuclear deal in May, nearly all Iranian products including tribal rugs, caviar and pistachios have again beem placed on the blacklist of Washington’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

“Handmade carpets belong to the Iranian nation and the US President Donald Trump has made a mistake to sanction this Iranian art which is a symbol of the culture and intellectual property of the Iranian people”, Fereshteh Dastpak, director of the National Carpet Centre of Iran said.

Iran is already pursuing a much wider claim against the US at the ICJ, otherwise known as the World Court, based at The Hague. The country on July 17 filed a lawsuit against the US at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the reimposition of heavy sanctions against Tehran by the Trump administration, claiming the move violates the little-known Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations and Consular Rights, signed as far back as 1955 by the two countries.

Iran exports its hand-made rugs to 81 markets worldwide according to official data and in recent years the US has accounted for around one-third of the exports.

In the 2016-17 Persian year, some $90mn worth of Persian rugs were sold to the US alone.