US has no right to restore sanctions: Iran
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
Tehran: Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that the US has "no right" to restore all the pre-2015 UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Zarif made the remarks in a letter to the rotating chairman of the UN Security Council (UNSC), reports Xinhua news agency. "The Dispute Resolution Mechanism is only open to the actual JCPOA participants," Zarif said in the letter which was written on Thursday and made public by the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday.
US officials have recently claimed to remain a "participant" in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) by force of UNSC Resolution 2231, with the intention of initiating the JCPOA's Dispute Resolution Mechanism and re-imposing UNSC sanctions on Iran.
Zarif added that the US has violated both the JCPOA and Resolution 2231 by withdrawing from it, unilaterally reimposing sanctions on Iran, "and even punishing those complying with the resolution". On the contrary, Iran has showed good faith in continuing "full implementation" of the JCPOA for "a full year" after the US withdrawal in 2018 and only applied "remedial measures" afterwards.
Zarif asked the UNSC to prevent the US from "unilaterally and unlawfully abusing the Dispute Resolution Mechanism". Zarif's statement comes after France, Germany and the UK said that they will not support the US in seeking to reimpose sanctions on Iran.
A year after the US' unilateral exit, Iran stopped implementing some of its commitments under the deal and set a 60-day deadline for the Europeans to help the Islamic republic reap the economic benefits of the deal. The two developments came after the US' draft resolution failed to get the required nine votes in favour at the UN Security Council on August 14 to extend the arms embargo against Iran.
Besides the US, only the Dominican Republic voted in favour of the draft. China and Russia voted against the text, and the remaining 11 Security Council members, including the European allies of the US, abstained.