Hook’s departure “does not concern us and is not something we consider as a game-changer,” Miryousefi, spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York, told Reuters on Thursday.
“The so-called ‘maximum pressure’ campaign waged by the US government has failed,” he said.
“Iran is not on its knees, and will not do so regardless of who is in charge of implementing this bankrupt policy,” the envoy said.
Hook, is leaving his post and US special representative for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, will add Iran to his role “following a transition period” with Hook, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday.
Hook, 52, was appointed to the top Iran role at the US State Department in late 2018 and tried to lead Washington’s so-called “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran after Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and the world powers.
Pompeo did not give a reason for the change but wrote in a tweet that Hook was moving on to the private sector.