TEHRAN: Iran could easily abandon its nuclear deal with world powers within hours if the United States sticks to its policies of “sanctions and coercion”, President Hassan Rouhani warned on Tuesday.
“The failed experience of sanctions and coercion brought their previous administrations to the negotiating table,” Rouhani told parliament in a televised speech.
“If they want to go back to that experience, definitely in a short time — not weeks or months, but in the scale of hours and days — we will return to our previous situation very much more stronger.”
Trump proved US not ‘a good partner’
President Hassan Rouhani further said that his US counterpart Donald Trump had shown the world he was “not a good partner” by threatening to tear up a 2015 nuclear deal.
“In recent months, the world has witnessed that the US, in addition to its constant and repetitive breaking of its promises in the JCPOA (nuclear deal), has ignored several other global agreements and shown its allies that the US is neither a good partner nor a reliable negotiating party,” Hassan Rouhani told parliament.
US sanctions
Iran says new sanctions that the United States has imposed on it breach the nuclear deal it agreed in 2015 and has complained to a body that oversees the pact’s implementation.
Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed by the United States, Russia, China, France, UK and Germany, Iran curbed its nuclear work in return for the lifting of most sanctions.
However, the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on six Iranian firms in late July for their alleged role in the development of a ballistic missile program, after Tehran launched a rocket capable of putting a satellite into orbit.
The U.S. Senate voted on the same day to impose new sanctions on Iran, Russia and North Korea. The sanctions in that bill also target Iran’s missile programs.
“Iran’s JCPOA supervisory body assessed the new U.S. sanctions and decided that they contradict parts of the nuclear deal,” Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, was earlier quoted as saying by a news agency.
