nuclear-news

The United States is pushing ahead with a scheme to extend a United Nations arms embargo on Iran that is due to be lifted in October as part of the nuclear deal that Washington abandoned two years ago.

To force the extension, Washington will attempt to lobby the Security Council to continue the arms embargo, which bars weapons sales to or from Iran.

But it also is making what legal experts and diplomats describe as a convoluted argument that it is still part of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action it left, and hence able to use one of its provisions to “snapback” the embargo.

The administration’s plan is to claim it is still part of the Security Council resolution that enshrined the nuclear deal in international law even though Mr Trump trashed the agreement, meant to curtail Tehran’s atomic technology programme, as the “worst deal” in history.

The plan was first reported by The New York Times earlier this week………

diplomats and scholars fear that the Trump administration’s latest gambit is a move by hardline Washington fixtures aimed at delivering a lasting blow to any prospects for a future deal with Iran, as well as part and parcel of far-right efforts to damage international multilateral institutions.

“The administration is trying to force everyone’s hand by creating yet another crisis that they hope this time would bring down the JCPOA for good,” said Ali Vaez, of the International Crisis Group, a conflict-resolution advocacy organisation.

Iran, which has severely downgraded its adherence to provisions of the nuclear deal in response to crippling US sanctions, has vowed that any reimposition of international sanctions would prompt it to leave the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and potentially open the door for it to pursue nuclear weapons…….

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/us-iran-punishment-trump-nuclear-deal-abandon-un-embargo-a9494796.html