Speaking in an IRIB TV program on Saturday night, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reacted to US threats to trigger a snapback mechanism to restore anti-Iran sanctions, saying, "Believing that US has no legal status in JCPOA, all members of the UN Security Council except for the Dominican Republic, officially announced their opposition against the US anti-Iran bid at UN Security Council meeting."
Today, after committing a lot of crimes and causing hundreds of billions of financial damages to the Iranian nation as well as the assassination of Lieutenant General Ghasem Soleimani, it is not easy for the US to return to the agreement, Zarif stressed.
Pointing out that Mike Pompeo just refers more to the words of Obama or John Kerry when talking about the returning of the anti-Iran resolutions, Zarif explained, “Pompeo claims that according to JCPOA, sanctions can be re-activated by triggering a snapback mechanism, this is while he has not even read the articles of the 2231 Resolution and the JCPOA yet.”
Zarif stressed that neither the name of the “trigger” nor the name "Snapback" used by the Americans is mentioned in Resolution 2231 or in the JCPOA, adding that, “John Bolton, the only one among the Americans who has read the resolution, declared in his recent article that the mechanism for restoring previous resolutions is a complicated and lengthy one.”
Describing “sanction” as the daily tool of the United States, Zarif criticized that so far, the US has imposed 120 sanctions on most countries of the world since the foundation of the United Nations in 1945.
The United States has even affected its closest European ally, Germany and it is claiming that if any country participates in the project of Nord Stream this country will stand against it, added the minister.
Elsewhere in his remarks, he referred to the fact that Iran has never been one of the largest buyers of weapons in the world, adding that with the assistance of God and through indigenous knowledge and efforts of the Iran Armed Forces’ experts, not only Iran is self-sufficient in many areas of defense, but also the country has the capacity to export weapons to other countries.
In the end, Zarif said that soon the UN and UN Security Council restrictions will be lifted and countries will be allowed to trade arms with Iran.
“Also, we can meet our military equipment needs from countries such as Russia and China that we have a strategic relationship with them”, the Iranian Foreign Minister said, stressing that, “Also, it is unlikely that US Secondary sanctions become an obstacle against these countries in this field.”
RHM/5027820