TEHRAN - Majid Takht-Ravanchi, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, has said that the United States has no right to initiate anything under the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 which endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.

“@USAmbUNbelieves US retains right to initiate snapback of sanctions under UNSCR 2231. 
WRONG: US cannot be a JCPOA “Participant”, since 
@realDonaldTrump ceased U.S. participation. 
The US—which is in violation of the resolution—has no right to initiate anything under 2231,” he tweeted on Friday.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft announced on Friday that Washington had shared the draft resolution on the extension of Iran’s arms embargo with Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Estonia which are all members of the Security Council.

Two years after the United States withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, the Trump administration is looking to extend a UN ban on conventional arms sales to and from Iran, a strategy designed to kill the deal for good.

In a May 9 statement marking the second anniversary of the Donald Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pledged to “exercise all diplomatic options” to extend the UN ban on conventional arms sales to and from Iran beyond its current expiry date on October 18.

Former Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has dismissed the argument by the Trump administration. 

“The international prohibition on weapons going to/from Iran ends in October. To extend this arms embargo, the Trump admin is suddenly arguing that the US is a party to the same Iran Deal it abandoned. That makes no sense. Make up your mind, @SecPompeo,” Warren tweeted.

Tony Blinken, the Joe Biden campaign’s chief foreign policy adviser, has also slammed the Trump administration “sheer hypocrisy” for relying on a mechanism in the JCPOA to reinstate multilateral sanctions on Iran should the United Nations fail to extend an arms embargo on Tehran.

“It’s hard not to almost admire the sheer hypocrisy of the action that the administration is trying to take in seeking to, in effect, force countries at the Security Council to find a way to extend the arms embargo on Iran,” Al-Monitor quoted Blinken as saying in April on a virtual panel hosted by the Jewish Democratic Council of America.

“They’re trying to use this provision in the [nuclear deal] to require the extension of the arms embargo. The only problem is we are no longer participating in the agreement,” Blinken said.

In a report published by Reuters in April, it was also said that the United States will face a tough, messy battle if it uses a threat to trigger a return of all UN sanctions on Iran as leverage to get the 15-member Security Council to extend and strengthen an arms embargo on Tehran, diplomats said.

NA/PA