Iran’s return to JCPOA before termination of sanctions meaningless

The Head of Iraq’s Central Office for Union for Strategic Studies Mahmud al-Hashemi said in an exclusive interview with IRNA that if the Americans wish to prove their good will they should terminate the anti-Iranian sanctions, because Tehran’s return to its Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) commitments before that is quite meaningless.

“As the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has stressed, the termination of entire unilateral and illegal US anti-Iranian sanctions is Iran’s condition for Tehran’s return to its JCPOA commitments,” he added.

Al-Hashemi said that the American Anti-Iranian sanctions are null and void, and imposed merely to force Iran to yield to bilateral talks with Americans, which would have been the cancellation of the seven-sided nuclear agreement, with which the Islamic Republic did not agree, because it respected the other sides of the JCPOA.

He said that Iran has during the past years been exposed to the most severe unilateral and illegal American sanctions just to preserve the legitimacy of that international agreement.

Al-Hashemi pointed out that those most severe sanctions even included depriving Iran of its needs to medicines and other most necessary needs, that was tolerated patiently by the Iranians, and it is therefore Iran’s most natural right to get rid of the sanctions first, and then return to the entire restrictions imposed by the nuclear agreement.

“America has no rights for defining conditions for Iran’s return to the JCPOA, because it was Washington has, but only one out of the seven votes in the agreement, and is besides the only side that has unilateral exited the agreement,” he emphasized.

The Iraqi strategic affairs analyst meanwhile reiterated that the US President Joe Biden’s condition on the need for Iran’s stopping of its uranium enrichment, too, is illogical, because it is the articles of the JCPOA that defines Iran’s right, not America’s great and small demands.

“Accordingly, Iran’s demands for termination of sanctions by the United States and the US return to JCPOA are both righteous, because the sanctions are imposed against the text of that international agreement,” he added.

Al-Hashemi meanwhile referred to the losses that Iran has suffered from due to the unilateral, illegal US sanctions, stressing, “Iran also has the right to demand the United States to pay remuneration for those losses accordingly.

“The European member and non-member states, too, acted weakly, as they all yielded to the illegal US demands,” said the analyst.

He said that that weak political status of the European countries also affected inaction of their banks in confrontation with the Americans’ demands, that was due to the weakness of their governments, that is interpreted both as weakness and as breaching of their own commitments, as well.