US must remove obstacles to JCPOA implementation: Author

Press TV has conducted an interview with Kaveh Afrasiabi, author and political scientist from Boston, about Iran’s criticism that the US is yet to fulfill its obligations under the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries despite Tehran’s commitment to its side of the accord.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Numerous Iranian politicians and businessman have echoed the same concern. Why is the US dragging its feet in fulfilling its part of the JCPOA, while pretending that everything is fine and it’s not making or keeping any obstacles in the process of lifting the anti-Iran sanctions?

Afrasiabi: Unfortunately that is the sad state of affairs today that has been reflected in the statement by Mr. Takht-e-Ravanchi who is a key architect of the JCPOA; [he] has been seriously involved in the bilateral talks with the US and his complaints should be taken very seriously in the US circles in light of the upcoming visit to Tehran by the prime minister of India, and the fact that some six billion dollars of the assets or whatever money that has India to transfer to Iran is still being blocked because of these problems.

And that’s just one example of the many problems that the implementation aspect of the deal faces and requires pro-active US action in order to be resolved. And we have seen some blame games being traded between US and Europeans. And the Europeans are still hesitant to engage with Iran because of the lingering sanctions and so on. And it requires really serious efforts by the US to clear the path for the implementation of the nuclear deal to go through smoothly as requested by the Iranian officials.

Press TV: There is this growing call inside Iran that Tehran should not have trusted the US in the first place on the nuclear deal. Does this dubious behavior on the part of Washington, particularly Congress, not damage the US’ credibility on international arenas regarding similar treaties and deals possibly now or in the future?

Afrasiabi: Yes and we have seen growing pressure on the administration of President Rouhani by some critics of the nuclear deal and so on. And this will mount in the future, if the US is not fulfilling its part of the bargain and fully implementing its obligations under nuclear deal. And the US government is speaking with different voices. We have seen the governor of Texas just today saying that he has plans to, in fact, make it harder to implement the US part of the deal and so.

There are several levels of the US government that are involved in the implementation – the US Congress, the executive branch as well as the local governments, the various levels of the sub-national governments that have a say in this. And so it’s not a uniform or homogenous entity that we are dealing with and unfortunately that complicates the process, and irrespective we have an international agreement that has been signed by multi-parties, and US is one of them and has to abide by its obligations; otherwise, they would bring it to the edge.

Press TV: If this US behavior results in the collapse of this agreement, one highly probable outcome would be Iran resuming its nuclear activities, which are obviously peaceful, to its pre-deal level. Now, can that right be questioned by the global community once more?

Afrasiabi: The global community has to understand that Iran has faithfully implemented its obligations under nuclear deal, but the other side has not, just as Mr. Takht-Ravanchi has stated today. And therefore, the ball is in the US’s lap and the US likes credibility with respect to its complaint that it’s not really the US but the Europeans and so on.

And this blame game has to stop and we have to see very concrete and constructive action by the US to remove these hesitations and foot-dragging in order for Iran to see tangible benefits from the nuclear deal that has promised the lifting of economic sanctions. And that has yet to be fulfilled and there’s a growing sense of frustration in Iran echoed by Mr. Ravanchi and other Iranian officials.

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