SOLNECHNOGORSK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd August, 2020) The United States' attempts to implement its initiative on restoring sanctions on Iran via the UN Security Council will not succeed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a youth forum in the Moscow region on Sunday.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sent a letter to the UN Security Council requesting that it invoke the 2015 nuclear agreement snapback mechanism under Resolution 2231, citing Iran's non-compliance with the accord. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in turn, sent a letter to the UNSC calling on the members to prevent the United States from attempting to reimpose UN sanctions against Iran because it is no longer a participant in the 2015 nuclear deal.
"Unfortunately, the US simply left this [nuclear] agreement by slamming the door. Now, it triggers a crisis within the UN Security Council, but we will overcome this crisis. Attempts to illegally use the resolution that the US violated itself will not succeed," Lavrov said.
Earlier in August, Washington announced its plans to trigger the snapback mechanism to reimpose all the UN sanctions against Iran, which were previously lifted under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), after failing to get the UN Security Council to pass a resolution aiming to indefinitely extend the arms UN embargo on Iran. The arms embargo is set to expire in October under the terms of the nuclear agreement. Zarif has said that Washington's move to trigger snapback sanctions linked to the JCPOA was "illegal."
The JCPOA, signed in 2015 by Iran, China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union, stipulates the removal of international sanctions from Tehran in exchange for it scaling down its nuclear program. The deal was then enshrined in UNSC Resolution 2231, including a provision on a five-year arms embargo.
The United States unilaterally abandoned the agreement in May of 2018.
