US must earn its way back into the JCPOA says Iran

Zarif: US must earn right to rejoin Iran deal by fulfilling obligations

…from PressTV, Tehran

[ Editor’s Note: Iran’s JCPOA strategy is carved in stone and makes perfect sense. Iran is not about to renegotiate the US or anyone else coming back into the JCPOA, including the EU countries that have been laying back pretending they are still in it.

Iran knows that its future credibility is dead if it allows international agreements it has been signed to be renegotiated by new administrations of the original co signers. No agreement is worth the paper it is printed on under that circumstance.

Biden has already undermined his JCPOA position by playing his ballistic missile card before even being inaugurated. So he will start out his administration with his own breach of the agreement.

The weirdest part of all is that the agreement provides a process for renegotiation, which everyone seems to have forgotten. After ten years, the agreement is up for renewal, so the US or anyone else could just walk away, or bring up the ballistic missile item then.

And Iran could bring up that until Israel surrenders its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and opens up to international inspection, then Iran would demand equal treatment.

But, the way that the forces of chaos continue to steer the world is to impose their hegemony by any means necessary, and frankly they have a lot of means at their disposal, including some that are disgraceful.

The US has a horrible stain on it due to those in power here allowing our own military to get involved in an attempt to covertly use proxy terrorists in regime overthrow operations, a serious violation of both domestic and international law, thinking they could hide in under the veil of “counter-terrorism” operations.

That has been exposed as a pitiful joke for all the world to see and is responsible for some rot setting into our armed forces, with the current sexual harassment scandals being just one spin off.

I would bookend the list with the complete stand down by almost all US security operations in defending the country from hugely abusive Israeli espionage operations, which have penetrated the American political system down to its bone marrow.

I have not noticed this problem to have even made it to the bottom of Mr. Biden’s list yet, nor do I have high hopes, as the Israelis always bet on black and red, and zero and double zero, before they spin the roulette wheel… Jim W. Dean ]

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First published … December 12, 2020 

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the US is obliged to return to the 2015 nuclear deal, but it should first strive to earn the right to do so by fulfilling its obligations under the UN-endorsed pact that it abandoned over two years ago.

In an interview with the Tehran-based Arman Media Cultural Institute released online on Thursday, Zarif said most experts believe that the Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was “a great achievement” for the Islamic Republic.

Although the US ceased its participation in the JCPOA, it cannot prevent the implementation of the agreement under Article 25 of the UN Charter, he added.

“The United States is obliged to return to the JCPOA, and for the US to become a member of the JCPOA, it must try to meet membership conditions,” the top Iranian diplomat said. “We are open to America’s return to the JCPOA, but it must earn the right to return to the JCPOA by fulfilling its commitments.”

The JCPOA was signed in 2015 between Iran and six world states — namely the US, Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China — and ratified in the form of Resolution 2231.

However, President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the JCPOA in May 2018 and reinstated the anti-Iran sanctions that had been lifted by the deal.

The Trump administration also targeted Iran with the so-called maximum pressure campaign, subjecting the nation to the “toughest ever” restrictive measures.

As the remaining European parties failed to fulfill their end of the bargain and compensate for Washington’s absence, Iran moved in May 2019 to suspend some of its commitments under Articles 26 and 36 of the accord covering Tehran’s legal rights.

President-elect Joe Biden, who will take over from Trump in January, has hinted at returning to the nuclear agreement, which was inked when he was vice president.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Zarif stressed that Iran has remained committed to all of its obligations under the JCPOA, and that so far, no one has said that the country has withdrawn from the deal.

“We are not pessimistic about the future. The United States violated the Iranian people’s rights, but it has not been able to do anything. America is a loser in this matter, but we are not a winner either because the people have been under pressure. This game can turn into a win-win game,” he said.

Zarif further referred to abortive attempts by the US and Israel to portray Iran as a security threat since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The reason for Israeli and American concerns about the signing of the JCPOA was that the deal eliminated those security threat claims as well as six Security Council resolutions without being implemented against Iran, he said.

Jim W. Dean

Jim W. Dean is VT Editor Emeritus.  He was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022.  He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews.  He now writes and posts periodically for VT.

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