Vienna: A senior Iranian official warned the US of a “firm and strong reaction” if it persists in actions he says are endangering a nuclear deal aimed at curbing programmes Tehran could use to make atomic arms.
Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi was alluding to a bill before President Barack Obama that would extend US sanctions by 10 years. The bill was submitted to Obama after the US Senate voted to extend it last week.
The deal lifted international sanctions in exchange for limitations on the Iranian nuclear programme. But US sanctions remain and will expire on December 31 if Obama doesn’t sign the extension into law.
Speaking at a nuclear security conference, Salehi urged Washington on Monday to desist from “irrational and provocative” moves.
Meanwhile, the foreign ministers of China and Iran on Monday urged governments not to violate the nuclear deal in remarks apparently directed at President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said during a visit to Beijing that the seven nations who agreed to the deal in July 2015 “have the obligation to fully implement” it.
“Iran will not allow any country to take unilateral action to violate the agreement and Iran has the right to take action against that,” Zarif said at a news conference after meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
The deal, negotiated between Iran, the United States, China, Britain, France, Germany and Russia, outlined what the Iranian government had to do to pull back its nuclear programme from the brink of weapons-making capacity. It also spelled out the West’s obligations to end many financial, trade and oil sanctions that had battered Iran’s economy. The deal went into effect in January and has been largely respected.
Trump has vowed to renegotiate the terms of the deal and increase its enforcement. None of the other parties to the agreement has expressed interest in picking apart the deal, which took more than a decade of diplomatic efforts and almost two full years of negotiations to come about.
Wang said the “full implementation” of the agreement between Iran and six world powers was “the common and joint responsibility of all the parties involved, and it should not be affected by any change in the domestic situations of the countries concerned.”
