TEHRAN — Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani has criticized the decision by the three European parties to the nuclear deal for triggering the dispute mechanism under the agreement, saying such move would have ramifications for them.

“The fact that the Europeans speak of taking advantage of Paragraph 36 (of the JCPOA) shows what they intend to do,” Larijani said on Wednesday, Tasnim reported.

He said Iran will respond to such conduct, which is similar to that of the United States.

“Of course, it is natural that such political clash would have consequences for both sides,” the parliament speaker added.

France, Britain, and Germany confirmed on January 14 that they had triggered the dispute mechanism in the JCPOA, also known as the Iran nuclear deal, but said they were not joining the United States campaign to exert maximum pressure on Tehran.

Russia has announced that it sees no grounds to trigger the dispute mechanism, saying the activation of this mechanism may make it impossible to return to the implementation of the agreement.

China has also expressed regret over the decision, saying it will not help solve the issues or ease current tensions.

JCPOA was struck between Iran and the five permanent UN Security Council members — the United States, Russia, China, France, and the UK — as well as Germany and the European Union in July 2015 and went into effect in January 2016.

However, the accord came under increasing strain ever since U.S. President Donald Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from it in May 2018 and unleashed the “toughest ever” sanctions against Iran despite global objections.

On May 8, exactly one year after the U.S. abandoned the deal, Tehran announced that its “strategic patience” is over and began to partially reduce its commitments to the agreement at bi-monthly steps.

Eventually, in its fifth and final step on January 5, Iran suspended all limits under the JCPOA.

Under the agreement, endorsed by the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, Iran agreed to put limits on its nuclear activities in exchange for termination of economic and financial sanctions.

Iran is still insisting that if the Europeans shield Iran from U.S. sanctions it will reverse its decision. 
 
MH/PA