New US sanctions on Iran will undermine JCPOA: MP

A senior Iranian lawmaker says possible adoption of new sanctions against Iran by the US will harm a nuclear agreement reached between Tehran and the P5+1 group of countries last July.

The US is creating obstacles in the way of implementing the nuclear agreement, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), to express its dissatisfaction with its absence in Iran’s markets, Chairman of the Iranian Parliament (Majlis) Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, said on Friday.

The US sought to advance its own economic interests in the JCPOA but we are witnessing in practice that the United States has been denied the chance for presence in Iran’s markets, Boroujerdi added.

The JCPOA, reached between Iran and the P5+1 –  the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany – in the Austrian capital of Vienna on July 14, 2015, puts limits on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the removal of all economic and financial nuclear-related sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

In a letter to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on October 21, 2015, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei enumerated certain points on the implementation of the JCPOA and issued directives to be heeded in that regard, among them the government’s duty to check the imports of goods from the US.  

Congress to vote on fresh new sanctions

The Foreign Affairs Committee in the US House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bill that would limit President Barack Obama’s ability to lift anti-Iran sanctions as stipulated in the JCPOA.

The bill is designed to prevent the removal of certain Iranian individuals and financial institutions from the US Treasury Department’s sanctions list, until Obama assures Congress that they were not involved in Iran's ballistic missiles program or alleged terrorist activities.

The House committee’s bill, which is scheduled for a vote in the full Congress this week, targets more than 50 individuals and entities included in an attachment to the nuclear agreement, as well as the Treasury's ‘Specially Designated Nationals’ list.

Boroujerdi further said that Iran and six world powers are likely to start implementing the JCPOA in the near future, adding that European countries will have an active presence in Iran’s markets but the US would be denied such an opportunity.

“This is while the Americans sought to increase their economic revenues through the JCPOA,” the Iranian lawmaker added.

He warned that the adoption of the new US bill would violate and undermine the JCPOA.

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