All sides should stay committed to nuclear deal: Russian envoy
Exclusive – Against a backdrop of Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president, the Russian Ambassador to Tehran has underscored that all sides to the deal should keep their side of the bargain.
“We hope commitments in the JCPOA are implemented and hope all sides, including the U.S., remains committed (to the deal),” Levan Dzhagaryan told the Tehran Times on Thursday on the sidelines of the 22nd international press exhibition in Tehran.
Championed by the outgoing Obama administration, the deal granted Iran sanctions reliefs in exchange for it scaling down its nuclear program.
On Tuesday, Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump won a race against Democrat Hillary Clinton, becoming the 45th U.S. president.
With unpredictable Trump expected to take office on January 20, 2017, there are fears he may put the nuclear deal reached between Iran and world powers in July 2015 on shaky ground.
A businessman-turned-politician who has never held public office, Trump called the nuclear pact a "disaster" and "the worst deal ever negotiated" during his campaign and said it could lead to a "nuclear holocaust,” raising the prospect the U.S. would pull out of the pact.
He also had been quoted as having said that he would “rip up” the pact although he toned down his rhetoric later on, noting he had never said he would “rip up” the deal but “police that contract so tough they don’t have a chance…”
Reacting to Trump’s election, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, during a visit to Romania on Wednesday, said, “Every U.S. president has to understand the realities of today's world. The most important thing is that the future U.S. president sticks to agreements, to engagements undertaken.”
AK/PA