- Nineteen prisoners use cutlery to break out of cells at Winchester prison
- France wants progress in Ukraine before Russia returns to G7
- Italy president begins talks to seek way out of government crisis
- Italian PM expected to resign as political chaos deepens
- Russia says US cruise missile test ‘regrettable’
- Kremlin - No date set for Normandy talks on Ukraine despite Macron meeting
- Egypt court hands out 6 death sentences on terror charges
- Putin says Russian nuclear explosion poses no threat
- Russian panel eyes alleged foreign interference in protests
- Gran Canaria wildfire triggers evacuation of thousands of people
- PM Johnson calls on Germany and France to compromise on Brexit
- Sudan's ex-president Bashir arrives at corruption trial
Amid the US’s unashamed drive targeting the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world countries, the United Nations secretary-general urges exhaustion of all possible means to prevent “destruction” of the historic accord.
“Our position in relation to the JCPOA has always been the same. We consider [that] the JCPOA was a very important step forward in relation to the question of nuclear proliferation,” Antonio Guterres told an online press conference on Thursday in response to a question posed by IRNA.
“And we still believe that everything must be done in order to make sure that the JCPOA is not destroyed,” he added.
Officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the landmark deal was reached between Iran and the P5+1 group -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany -- in 2015. However, in May 2018, US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled his country out of the JCPOA and later re-imposed the sanctions that had been lifted against Tehran on the back of the deal.
Although it is no longer a party to the deal, Washington has recently launched a campaign to renew an embargo on the sales of conventional weapons to the Islamic Republic that will expire under the accord in October.
To try and rationalize its efforts, the US says it is still “named” as a JCPOA partner in UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that endorses the nuclear deal.
Tehran says Washington, due to its unilateral withdrawal, has forfeited all rights to have a say in the agreement.
Guterres was speaking a day after the US briefed the Security Council on a resolution it has drafted to extend the embargo, in response to IRNA’s question whether Washington was trying to either weaken or annihilate the JCPOA using a recent report on Resolution 2231 by the UN chief.
Your Comment