Iran’s Parliament speaker says US must prove commitment to JCPOA, lift sanctions

Iran’s Parliament speaker says instead of setting preconditions for returning to the JCPOA, the administration of US President Joe Biden must first prove its commitment to the nuclear deal by offering a roadmap to the removal of unilateral sanctions imposed on Tehran.

Speaking at an open session of Parliament on Sunday, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf deplored recent comments by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which was signed between Iran and six world powers in July 2015.

Blinken claimed during a news conference that Iran was “out of compliance on a number of fronts” and that “it would take some time, should it make the decision to do so, for it to come back into compliance and time for us then to assess whether it was meeting its obligations.”

“We’re not there yet, to say the least,” the US secretary of state commented.

In reaction to the remarks coming from Washington, Iran’s Parliament speaker said if the White House believes in the deal, it must prove its commitment “in practice” instead of “setting conditions.”

The smart people of Iran, Qalibaf stated, are not naïve. The experience of the JCPOA does not allow them to enter a game where Iran is pressured to adopt practical measures in return for mere promises, the Iranian official said.

“The new US administration should consider practical ways to remove sanctions and fulfill its legal obligations.”

The JCPOA was initially signed between Iran and the six countries — the United States, Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China — and was held up in the form of UN Security Council Resolution 2231 shortly afterwards.

But in May 2018, Donald Trump, the former US president, ordered unilateral withdrawal of Washington from the accord and reinstated the anti-Iran sanctions that had been lifted by the deal.

Now Biden, who was vice president when the deal was signed during the administration of former President Barack Obama, has said he hopes to get Washington back to the deal.

What his secretary of state recently said seems contradictory to what Biden hoped for.

In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Thursday since Washington had in various occasions violated the JCPOA, it was the United States that must take the first step to prove commitment to the accord.

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Foreign Minister Zarif reminds his American counterpart of the “maximum failure” of the former US president toward Iran.

Elsewhere in his parliamentary address, Qalibaf pointed to his Thursday visit to the Fordow enrichment facility and hailed the beginning of activities aimed at developing nuclear centrifuges in cooperation with the Iranian administration.

Qalibaf said now that the centrifuges have started spinning at Iran’s Fordow nuclear site and the production of 20-percent enriched uranium has began, the country’s diplomatic apparatus is in a better condition to strive toward the removal of sanctions.

“We believe that in addition to its beneficial role in energy generation and production of radio drugs, the nuclear industry can also help thwart the impact of sanctions.”

Iran on January 4 announced the beginning of the process to enrich uranium to 20-percent purity at Fordow in its latest step to reciprocate the American withdrawal and the failure of the European signatories to fulfill their side of the deal.

Parliament speaker: Iran ahead of schedule in producing 20% enriched uranium

The Iranian Parliament speaker says the country is currently ahead of the planned schedule to produce 20 percent enriched uranium.

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