US Return to JCPOA Meaningless without Lifting Sanctions: Iran’s UN Envoy
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations said any US plan to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal would be worthless if it is not combined with the verifiable removal of the sanctions on Tehran.
In an interview with Khamenei.ir, Majid Takht Ravanchi said Washington’s expression of readiness to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will be worth nothing if the sanctions against Iran are not terminated in practice.
“We cannot agree on a signature on a letter alone. If the signature does not come with a process for verifying the (US) measures, that would be meaningless,” the envoy said.
He underscored that a termination of the oil sanctions on Iran must entail assurances that Iran will not face any problem to sell its oil and that the customers will easily transfer money via the international banking system.
In remarks earlier this month, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said Iran will resume honoring the JCPOA in full only after the US has removed all sanctions on Tehran in a practical and verifiable manner.
The JCPOA was signed in 2015 between Iran and six world states —the US, Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China— and was ratified in the form of Resolution 2231.
However, former US president Donald Trump unilaterally pulled Washington out of the JCPOA in May 2018 and reinstated the sanctions that had been lifted by the deal.
In May 2019, Iran began to scale back its JCPOA commitments after the remaining European parties failed to fulfill their end of the bargain and compensate for Washington’s absence.
