Top US Scientists Call on Trump Not to Dismantle JCPOA: Report
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Some 37 top American scientists have penned a letter to US president-elect Donald Trump, urging him to abide by a nuclear deal Tehran and six world powers reached in 2015, a report said.
“We urge you to preserve this critical US strategic asset (nuclear deal),” the letter read, The New York Times reported on Monday.
The letter was organized by Richard L. Garwin, a physicist who helped design the world’s first hydrogen bomb and has long advised Washington on nuclear weapons and arms control. He is among the last living physicists who helped usher in the nuclear age.
The 37 signatories included Nobel laureates, veteran makers of nuclear arms, former White House science advisers and the chief executive of the world’s largest general society of scientists.
During the campaign, Trump called the agreement, “the worst deal ever negotiated.”
“No. 1 priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal,” he said at the time.
Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) reached the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in July 2015 and implemented it in January this year.
While Tehran has fulfilled all of its commitments under the deal, Washington has failed to fully carry out its undertakings.
Earlier, the US Senate 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.
