Israel fears JCPOA revival, wants to keep Mideast in chaos: Iran

Iran says Israel is the party that is the most worried about a possible revival of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, as the regime massively benefits from instability in the Middle East region.

Ali Rabiei, the Iranian administration’s spokesman, made the remarks at a media briefing in Tehran on Tuesday, a few days after Tel Aviv said it was updating plans for a possible attack on Iranian nuclear sites.

He said “the Zionist regime is the party the most worried about the JCPOA and in the past, it did all it could to torpedo this agreement” prior to its signing, using an acronym for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the official name of the nuclear accord.

“Insecurity in the region is of great benefit to the Zionist regime, and on this basis, it may adopt deceptive measures to prevent the establishment of peace. Their (the Zionsts’) concern is the revival of the JCPOA,” the official added.

Last week, Israeli minister of military affairs Benny Gantz was asked in an interview with Fox News about Iran’s nuclear program and whether Israel was working on plans to attack Iranian targets.

“We have them (plans) in our hands of course but we will continue constantly improving them,” he told Fox News. “The Iranian nuclear escalation must be stalled. If the world stops them before, it's very much good. But if not, we must stand independently and we must defend ourselves by ourselves.”

Elsewhere in his comments, the Iranian administration’s spokesman said Tehran does not take Tel Aviv’s “ridiculous threats seriously. The leaders of the Israeli regime are well aware of the catastrophic consequences of such a blunder.”

“Such rhetoric, which is aimed at threatening and extorting money from the United States, is meant to dissuade America from returning to the JCPOA. It is up to the US administration [to decide] whether it wants to submit to such medieval blackmail or defend the independence of its policies and real interests of the American people. However, our response will be what our defense minister clarifed,” he noted.

In response to Gantz’s threat, Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami said on Sunday that Tehran would raze Tel Aviv and Haifa if Israel commited any mistake.

US in no position to set conditions for rejoining JCPOA 

Additionally, Rabiei was asked about Washington’s position on the future of the agreement. The US has conditioned the removal of sanctions on Tehran’s retracement of its nuclear countermeasures.

“I wonder if the declared positions on the JCPOA are meant for domestic audeince in the US. But if they [truly] constitute the foreign policy of the new US administration, we think that such policies are wrong and the outcome of misleading advice,” he said.

“The US is not in the position to set conditions for implementing its own international obligations. Unlike the United States, which is evading a return to the JCPOA, Iran is ready to honor all its commitments along with other JCPOA members as soon as possible.”

In 2015, Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, the US, the UK, France, Russia, and China plus Germany, signed the JCPOA, which was ratified in the form of UN Security Council Resolution 2231.

Three years later, however, former US president Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the JCPOA and reinstated the anti-Iran sanctions that had been lifted by the deal.

The new US administration, under President Joe Biden, has indicated its willingness to rejoin the JCPOA, but conditioned the move on Tehran’s resumption of the commitments it has suspended under the accord in response to the US withdrawal and the other parties’ failure to meet their end of the bargain.

But Tehran says the US should unconditionally remove all the sanctions imposed under Trump in a verifiable manner.

US ‘unprepared’ for prisoners exchange

Concerning the likelihood of a prisoners swap between Iran and the US, Rabiei said, “This issue is nothing new. The Foreign Minister previously clarified Iran’s position. We are ready to exchange all prisoners, and if it has not happened so far, it is because the United States has not been prepared.”

“The two sides can decide on this,” he added. “Many Iranians around the world have been imprisoned upon US orders. Of course, decisions and actions are being taken in this regard, but we believe that, as pointed out by Mr. [Mohammad Javad] Zarif, we can talk about the individuals that are being held and solve the problem.”

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