Iran Not to Tolerate JCPOA Breaches by A Certain Country: Araqchi
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Abbas Araqchi dismissed putting up with violations of the JCPOA commitments by a certain party to the nuclear deal.
“We will by no means tolerate it that a country breaches its undertakings regarding the JCPOA under various pretexts,” Araqchi, who also heads Iran’s JCPOA follow-up committee, told IRNA on Monday.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran will show appropriate response (to such violations),” he stressed.
The Iranian official said that is why Tehran has called for a meeting of the JCPOA joint commission in Vienna to consider Iran’s complaint over a recent US congressional bill extending the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA).
He said that according to the JCPOA mechanisms, if a country has a compliant about violation of the deal by another party, there should be a consultation between the two sides first.
Hence, “there will be consultations at the expert level between our experts and an American team today,” he noted.
The outcome of the talks will be presented to the joint commission on Tuesday, Araqchi went on to say.
The joint commission is a group tasked with monitoring commitments to the July 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).
The upcoming session of the commission will be held in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Tuesday, after Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in mid-December sent a letter to EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, who is also the coordinator of the JCPOA joint commission, calling for a session to address the recent US congressional bill.
The US Senate in December voted 99-0 to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for another decade. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives nearly unanimously in November, and congressional aides said they expected Obama would sign it.
On December 15, White House Spokesman Josh Earnest said US President Barack Obama had declined to sign ISA, but had let it become law anyway.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has warned that implementation of the ISA will constitute a “clear and flagrant violation of the JCPOA” and draw a “very harsh reaction” from Tehran.