US not to succeed in extending Iran’s arms embargos based on nuclear deal: Zarif

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Iran’s top diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif said Washington’s attempts to approve a resolution to extend arms embargos against Tehran in violation of the nuclear deal will fail.

“The Americans are attempting to prevent removal of arms embargos against Iran based on the nuclear deal which certainly runs counter to international undertakings. They will not succeed in issuing a resolution based on the nuclear deal because the US has withdrawn from it,” Rapporteur of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Seyed Hossein Naqavi Hosseini quoted Zarif as saying at a session at the parliament on Monday.

According to Zarif, Iran is using its utmost efforts to prevent the US troubling under any pretexts, the MP added.

Naqavi Hosseini said elsewhere, the Iranian foreign minister also underlined that Tehran has always wanted the Group 5+1 members to return to the nuclear deal and implement their undertaking which will encourage Iran to reverse its nuclear steps in modifying its Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) undertakings.

In defiance of global criticism, the US unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA, which President Donald Trump called “the worst deal ever,” in May 2018 and re-imposed the anti-Iran sanctions.

Also, reports said in recent weeks that Washington is planning to use a threat to trigger a return of all UN sanctions against Iran as leverage to get the 15-member Security Council to prolong the arms embargo on Tehran.

The removal of Iran's arms embargo is based on the nuclear deal between Tehran and major world powers, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Earlier this month, Iranian Permanent Envoy to the UN Majid Takht-e Ravanchi described the US attempts to extend the arms sanctions against Iran as running against the UN resolution 2231.

The claim that the United States is still a party to the agreement allowing it to invoke a sanctions snapback under certain pretexts is nothing but “an unprecedented joke”, Takht-e Ravanchi said.

“Security Council members should pay heed to the fact that any move to counter the lifting of Iran's arms embargo violates UNSC Resolution 2231,” he added.

The diplomat said that by withdrawing from the JCPOA, the United States violated both Resolution 2231 and its commitments stipulated under the JCPOA, adding that Washington’s international obligations have nothing to do with who is in charge in the White House.

“Moreover, the JCPOA has become part of international law through Resolution 2231, and it is unacceptable for Americans to say that because the agreement was signed by another government and now a different government is in power, they can withdraw from it,” he added.
The remarks come as the United States has reportedly circulated a draft UN resolution only to a small number of Security Council members, which would indefinitely extend a UN arms embargo on Iran set to expire in October.

Takht-e Ravanchi went on to say that the current US administration is trying to strike the expiration of the arms embargo from Resolution 2231, saying the embargo itself was “unjustly” imposed on Iran from the very beginning.

He also reacted to reports that the US could still invoke a sanctions snapback because it is named as a deal participant in the 2015 UN resolution, calling it a “jest.”

He said the comments were stunning and unacceptable to the international community, citing the May 8, 2019 statement by the White House that explicitly said it had terminated US participation in the JCPOA.

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