Iran will honor IAEA deal only if Europe ditches snapback of UN sanctions: FM
Iran will implement a recent agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) only if UN sanctions are not re-imposed on the country under the so-called snapback mechanism, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says.
Iranian lawmaker Ebrahim Rezaei, who is the spokesperson for the Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, cited Araghchi as saying on Saturday following a meeting between the top diplomat and members of the committee.
Araghchi said, “The deal with the IAEA emphasizes that cooperation and inspections of the country’s nuclear facilities should be within the framework of parliamentary law and resolutions of the Supreme National Security Council, and that the implementation of the agreement is conditional upon no hostile actions, such as snapback, being taken against Iran,” Rezaei said.
“The foreign minister stressed that if any hostile action is taken against our country, the deal [with the IAEA] will be considered null and void.”
On June 25, the Iranian Parliament unanimously passed legislation requiring the government to suspend all cooperation with the IAEA.
It came a day after Iran, through its successful retaliatory operations, managed to impose a halt to Israeli-US aggression that also targeted three of the country’s nuclear sites in a clear violation of international law and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The rationale for the move was the IAEA’s politically motivated resolution, which paved the way for the aggression against the Islamic Republic, and the agency’s failure to condemn the terrorist assault.
On September 9, Araghchi and IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi reached an agreement on practical modalities to resume cooperation after a meeting in the Egyptian capital of Cairo.
Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reach an agreement aimed at paving the way for resumption of cooperation between the two sides.
The lawmaker quoted Araghchi as saying that the IAEA has agreed to respect Iran’s security concerns regarding its nuclear facilities and interact with Tehran under new arrangements.
On August 28, the European signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), notified the UN Security Council that they had invoked the so-called snapback mechanism, a 30-day process to restore all UN sanctions against Iran.
Iran rejected the illegitimate move by Britain, France, and Germany, given the US’s unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA and the European trio’s alignment with unlawful sanctions against Iran instead of fulfilling their own commitments.
Rezaei said Araghchi has emphasized that Europe does not have the right to activate the snapback mechanism, and thus its anti-Iran action is illegal and lacks legal justification.
