Iran Considers Leaving Nuclear Treaty if Snapback Sanctions Triggered
7 hours ago
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Iran’s lead nuclear negotiator has asserted that his country would consider the option of withdrawing from a crucial treaty on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons in the event that European powers triggered a snapback mechanism reinstituting international sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Kazem Gharibabadi, who also serves as Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, made the comments during a briefing held with journalists in New York, ahead of his upcoming meeting in Turkey with representatives of France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
While the United States withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) under President Donald Trump’s first administration in 2018, the three European nations remain party to the deal, as does Iran. The trio has warned that they would begin instituting their own snapback sanctions on Tehran if an agreement was not reached by the end of next month.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, then serving as ambassador to the Interational Atomic Energy Agency, attends an IAEA board of governors meeting in Vienna, Austria on November 21, 2019. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, then serving as ambassador to the Interational Atomic Energy Agency, attends an IAEA board of governors meeting in Vienna, Austria on November 21, 2019.
Asked by reporters how Iran may respond to such a move, Gharibabadi said the decision had been announced previously under former President Hassan Rouhani, who led during both the JCPOA’s establishment as well as the U.S. withdrawal, and would involve Iran’s withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
“There was a communication by President Rouhani to his counterparts that if the snapback is triggered, what would be the response of Iran on that time, he wrote that Iran would withdraw from the NPT,” Gharibabadi said.
The senior Iranian diplomat emphasized that Tehran has thus far remained a full party to the treaty, despite “huge pressure at the domestic level” to exit, particularly after a 12-day war with Israel that also saw direct U.S. strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities amid ongoing negotiations.
“After this aggression, the people, parliamentarians, journalists, politicians, they were of the view that now is the time to withdraw from the NPT, because the aggression is worse than the snapback,” Gharibabadi said. “But Iran decided to stay in the NPT.”
“But I’m quite confident that if the snapback is triggered,” he added, “Iran will not show more restraint in this regard.”
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