Reimposition of US Sanctions to Kill JCPOA: Iranian MP
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Should the US president decertify the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the US Congress reimpose the anti-Iran sanctions lifted under the deal, the agreement will be deemed null and void and Iran will swiftly return to pre-JCPOA conditions, a lawmaker warned.
Honoring the JCPOA would be meaningless to Iran if US President Donald Trump chooses to declare the deal broken and the Congress reimposes the sanctions, Rapporteur of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Hossein Naqavi Hosseini told Tasnim on Saturday.
The return of sanctions will make Iran return to the pre-JCPOA conditions, he added.
The lawmaker also made it clear that Iran will remain committed to the accord as long as the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) honors the deal, stressing that violation of the agreement will have Iran resume its pre-JCPOA nuclear activities more vigorously.
Trump is seemingly preparing to declare that the international nuclear accord with Iran is no longer in America’s national security interests. He plans to announce the move next week as he unveils what aides say is a comprehensive new strategy for Iran.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has warned that if the US government decides to repeat the failed experience of imposing sanctions on Iran, Tehran can immediately acquire capabilities in its nuclear industry that would be much more advanced than those prior to the JCPOA negotiations.
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 reaction from Iran.
Iran and the Group 5+1 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.
The US has even imposed many fresh sanctions against Iran, in flagrant defiance of the JCPOA.