Hamid Baeidinejad made the remarks in a note on his Telegram channel where he wrote “today, we are on the eve of the second anniversary of the agreement reached in Vienna, a deal recognized as the greatest achievement of diplomacy in recent decades by governments of the world and other members of the international community.”
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in addition to consolidating our country's nuclear rights, removed many of the obstacles to Iran’s economic growth and development caused by sanctions and eliminated barriers in energy fields, including oil, gas and petrochemicals as well as transportation such as commercial shipping, tankers shipping and airlines.
Baeidinejad went on to state that, thanks to its solid foundation, the nuclear deal still remains in focus of attention at global and regional levels even two years after it was reached. Even the US government, who firmly claimed that the deal will end as soon as it takes office, has been incapable of taking action and has been compelled to meet its essential commitments announcing that it will fulfill obligations before an accurate assessment is reached. This comes at a time when the US government has never cared about violation of some bilateral and multilateral accords. For instance, despite all oppositions, America has begun construction of a border wall with Mexico, violating Obama's previous agreement with the Cuban government, which was deemed a historic agreement, and, most severely, unilaterally withdrew from the agreement on climate change in Paris.
The new US president started the most intense attacks against JCPOA early into his campaign. He described the deal as the worst MoU throughout history, and promised not to execute it. But contrary to its words, the US government has met its commitments in a number of critical occasions when life-saving decisions had to be made on future of the JCPOA. The first step was the need to issue a government order to continue suspending implementation of certain sanctions against Iran whose resumption would undoubtedly mark a clear breach of promises made in the deal. This was a very critical stage. The US president however said no to renewal of sanctions. The second stage was when, according to the previous congressional resolution, the American government had to declare Iran's compliance or non-compliance to the deal. They officially announced that Iran was committed to the accord. The third step was to decide whether or not to comply with the global agreement to confirm implementation of Iran's action on money laundering, and thus to suspend the restrictive measures of international banking against the Iranian banking system. This action, although not directly related to JCPOA implementation, could have put the deal into a very big challenge. At the recent summit of the Financial Action Task Force, which convened in Spain’s Valencia to effectively implement the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Rules, the US finally agreed with suspension of counter-measures against Iran.
Undoubtedly, implementation of the JCPOA has faced major challenges. Despite the fact that the US government has so far met its fundamental commitments, the continuation of America's hostile policies on the accord has caused some kind of caution in the economic community, large commercial companies and international banks for launch of economic and financial cooperation with Iranian parties. The current situation is in clear contradiction with obligations of governments on the basis of the deal since the JCPOA requires governments to take effective measures with the aim of normalizing economic relations with Iran.
In the same line, the Senate bill, if it gets approved by the House of Representatives and signed by the president of the US, needs to be scrutinized no matter if it is in conflict with the JCPOA or not since it will undoubtedly create a negative atmosphere for economic and trade relations with Iran by preventing the country from benefiting fully from the nuclear deal. The US government and other effective members are expected to prevent the measure by all means. Ultimately, the JCPOA is an international and multilateral agreement, and as no country can decide unilaterally about its fate, its preservation also requires a commitment from all members for its provisions to be fully realized.
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