Foreign minister indicates Tehran could go back to enriching uranium if
US president tries to add new conditions to groundbreaking agreement
Iran’s top diplomat has issued a stark warning to Donald Trump that
if he follows through on his threat to scrap the 2015 nuclear agreement
in three weeks’ time he will have to “face the consequences” that will
not be “pleasant” for the United States.
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, painted a bleak
picture of the prospects for survival of the nuclear deal, which Trump
has threatened to tear up on 12 May by refusing to waive a set of
sanctions – a move that is integral to the agreement. Zarif indicated
that should the US effectively pull out, Iran would refuse to stay inside the deal alongside the Europeans, calling that option “highly unlikely”.
An option actively being considered by Tehran, by contrast, was to
withdraw entirely from the deal by returning to uranium enrichment.
Other proposals being floated in the Iranian parliament, Zarif said,
involved more “drastic” measures – though he would not specify what
those entailed.
In an interview with reporters at an Iranian official residence overlooking New York’s Central Park, Zarif said that the Trump administration
had the “option to kill the deal, but they have to face the
consequences … We will make our decision based on our national security
interest when the time comes, but whatever it is it will not be very
pleasant for the United States, I can say that.”
Trump indicated
in January that he would refuse to sign the sanctions waiver when it
came up for its next renewal on 12 May unless Iran agreed to accept a
raft of new restrictions. But Zarif made it clear that the Iranian
regime had no intention of accepting any new demands, and turned the
argument around by accusing Washington of already violating the deal,
known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
He accused the US of doing everything in its power to prevent Iran
from engaging economically with the rest of the world, thus blocking
Tehran from benefitting from the easing of sanctions permitted under
JCPOA. He said that and other moves by the US amounted to a breach of
the deal that had been going on for the past 15 months.
“I don’t think that a country that has been in breach for at least
the last 15 months is in a position to make any new demands,” he said.
Zarif is in New York to attend a UN meeting on peace-building. In the
course of a six-day stay in the city he will have a one-on-one audience
with the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres.
As the final countdown begins to the next sanctions waiver deadline,
and amid Trump’s grand posturing, European states are scrambling to see
what can be done to salvage matters should the US president stand by his
word and pull the rug out from under the deal. But Zarif gave very
little sense of hope that anything would be possible.
He said it was “highly unlikely” that Iran would stay inside the
JCPOA if the US effectively pulled out. “It’s very important for Iran to
receive the benefits of the agreement – there’s no way that Iran would
do a one-sided implementation of it.”
He said France and Germany could try and persuade the US to deflect
from the collision course it was on, but he predicted such efforts would
be “fruitless”. And he warned of the danger to world peace posed by
Trump’s stance.
“The US is sending a very dangerous message to the people of Iran and
the people of the world. It says you never come to an agreement with
the US.
“The situation is creating an impression globally that agreements don’t matter.”
The Iranian regime has been heavily criticised in recent months for
its role in propping up the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, despite
his complicity in the death of thousands of civilians and his
willingness to use chemical weapons against his own people. Zarif
insisted that Iran was not engaged in the Syrian civil war to assist
Assad but to combat the threat of extremist groups, notably Isis.
He went on to question claims by western governments that Assad had
launched poison gas attacks against the Syrian town of Douma earlier
this month, killing at least 40 civilians. Zarif said there was insufficient evidence from the actual sites of the attack to reach that conclusion – while glossing over complaints that international inspectors had been prevented from reaching Douma for several days by the Syrian regime and Russia.
Zarif faced strong questioning about the apparent build-up of
permanent Iranian military bases in Syria, and whether the long-term
ambition was to prepare for conflict with Israel. He denied there were
any Iranian bases inside the country, claiming that his nation’s
presence was limited to military advisers stationed at existing Syrian
bases.
He also denied that Iran operated aerial drones inside the country.
When asked about the recent Israeli airstrike
against the T4 Iranian base east of Homs earlier this month that
appeared designed to reduce Iran’s aerial capabilities, he said: “T4 is
not an Iranian base, we don’t have a base in Syria.”
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Sunday 22 April 2018
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'It will not be very pleasant,' Iran warns, if Trump sabotages nuclear deal
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