US Must Guarantee to Honor Int’l Law: Iranian Spokesman
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – If Washington is sincere in its intent to return to the 2015 nuclear deal, it will have to remove all sanctions against Iran and give a guarantee that no US administration will ever scorn the international law again, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference on Monday, Khatibzadeh dismissed comments from US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who has hinted that the US would return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) if Iran does so.
“The United States must bear in mind that it is not a party to the JCPOA and cannot attribute comments to the other JCPOA members or make demands,” the spokesman said.
He reiterated that Washington must first lift, effectively and all at once, the cruel and illegal sanctions imposed after the previous US administration’s withdrawal from the JCPOA, and must also give a guarantee that no American administration will violate the international law again and that such conditions will not be repeated.
Pointing to the rehash of American officials’ claim that they seek to lift the sanctions imposed by the previous administration, Khatibzadeh said, “It is the action that counts.”
“The path for the United States’ return to the JCPOA is clear. It must agree that it will reverse its course as the one being to blame for the current circumstances,” he added.
The spokesman also said the US will not be allowed to take part in the upcoming round of Vienna talks on the revival of the JCPOA, since it is not a member of the nuclear agreement.
The US re-introduced the sanctions against Iran in 2018 after leaving the JCPOA, a historic nuclear agreement that had lifted the inhumane economic bans in return for some voluntary restrictions on Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program.
Following a year of strategic patience, Iran resorted to its legal rights stipulated in Article 26 of the JCPOA, which grants a party the right to suspend its contractual commitments in case of non-compliance by other signatories and let go of some of the restrictions imposed on its nuclear energy program.
Iran and the remaining parties to the JCPOA have held six rounds of talks in Vienna, which began after the US administration of Joe Biden voiced a willingness to rejoin the nuclear agreement, to examine the prospect of the bans’ fresh removal.
