Rouhani stresses zero tolerance on nuclear deal breach

December 4, 2016 - 20:25

TEHRAN – President Hassan Rouhani of Iran has warned the U.S. of the final approval of an anti-Iran bill, saying Tehran will show zero tolerance on it which breaches the terms of an international nuclear deal Iran reached with world powers last year.

“We will not tolerate the violation of BARJAM (JCPOA) and respond properly,” said Rouhani on Sunday, adding, “The recent bill passed by the U.S. Senate is in contravention of BARJAM and violates it.”

Rouhani was making the comments while attending the Majlis to submit an annual budget bill to the legislative body.

“We are determined to implement BARJAM in a proper way, but will act resolutely in the face of it not being honored, implemented hesitantly or violated,” the president added.

The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted 99-0 for the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) which, once signed into law by President Barack Obama, would extend sanctions against Iran for a ten-year period.

The House of Representatives had already passed the act with an overwhelming vote of 419-1.

If not extended, the ISA expires by the end of 2016.

The ISA, which was the Iran and Libya Sanction Act until 2006 after it was ratified in 1996, was introduced during the first term of the Clinton administration to rule out investment in Iran’s energy sector.

The Senate’s move to reinstate the bill stirred an argument in both Iran and the United States.

Iran says the measure, once ratified and enforced, will amount to a violation of the JCPOA, the nuclear deal Iran and six world powers concluded in July 2015.

President Rouhani says, “We are determined to implement BARJAM in a proper way, but will act resolutely in the face of it not being honored, implemented hesitantly or violated."Under the deal, Iran was guaranteed re-engagement with the global economy after it accepted to curb its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

However, the U.S. administration thinks the otherwise, ruling out the anti-JCPOA nature of the act.

“While we don’t think an extension is necessary, we’ve also been clear that a completely clean extension, as this one is, is entirely consistent with our commitments in the JCPOA,” U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Friday.

Washington will violate the JCPOA if it does not remove all individuals and entities set forth in the ISA in connection with Iran’s nuclear program, as stipulated in the nuclear deal.

This is in line with the U.S. administration’s commitment, acting consistent with the respective roles of the president and the Congress, to refrain from re-introducing or re-imposing the sanctions specified in the JCPOA.

Rouhani urged President Barack Obama to make good on his commitments.

“The American president is obliged to use his authority to prevent its ratification and implementation,” Rouhani asserted.

Other Iranian officials have preemptively vowed to retaliate against any move which does not honor the JCPOA.

“It is obvious that we have all options and alternatives in Iran [to respond to] the U.S. violation of its commitments,” Zarif said at a meeting with a group of Indian intellectuals in New Delhi on Saturday.

Previously, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on Iran’s foreign policy, had warned the anti-Iran act, if passed and enforced, “would certainly be in breach of BARJAM.”

Also, Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi, who helped finalize the deal, said a week ago plans had been envisioned in the event Washington failed to make good on its JCPOA commitments, seeing the ISA “a clear violation” of the nuclear deal.

The most explicit stance was taken by Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the Iranian parliamentary committee for national security and foreign policy.

“If America extends sanctions and violates BARJAM (JCPOA), we increase production and enrichment of uranium up to 190,000 SWU,” Boroujerdi said last week.

AK/PA