The speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, threatened foreign countries on Sunday that choose to abide by restored United Nations sanctions on the rogue state, insisting Iran will enact a “reciprocal response” to reduced economic engagement.
Qalibaf — as well as members of the Iranian Foreign Ministry and armed forces — responded this weekend to the reimposition of “snapback” sanctions by the United Nations Security Council, restoring sanctions predating the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal. The sanctions returned to vigor on Saturday after the three European powers in the JCPOA — France, the United Kingdom, and Germany — voted to begin the process to restore them in August. The countries made the move after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, voted to hold Iran in violation of international law in June in response to its illicit uranium enrichment and other nuclear activities it could not monitor as a result of deliberate attempts to “sanitize” key nuclear sites, raising concerns that Tehran was working towards the construction of nuclear weapons.
Iran has been shielded from the restoration of sanctions throughout the past decades by the permanent membership of two of its closest allies, Russia and China, on the Security Council. The JCPOA reportedly contained special provisions, however, that bar the two from vetoing the restoration of sanctions in the event that the other parties to the deal agreed to reimpose them.
The United States withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 under President Donald Trump; former President Joe Biden attempted repeatedly, but failed, to reintegrate America into the agreement.
Qalibaf, the Parliament speaker, reacted to the news of economic restrictions on his country with vague threats towards any nation who chose to respect the decision of the United Nations.
“We declare that if any country takes action against Iran based on these illegal[ly re-imposed] resolutions, it will be met with a reciprocal response from Iran,” he said on Sunday, according to the Iranian propaganda outlet PressTV, “and the three European countries behind this unlawful move will also see our reaction.”
PressTV added that Qalibaf insisted on a “strong and reciprocal” response from Tehran to anyone respecting the U.N. sanctions. He also insisted that the use of the JCPOA mechanism to respond to Iran’s illicit nuclear development was “illegal,” a common talking point this weekend in Tehran.
Separately, Iranian Foreign Ministry Abbas Araghchi reportedly sent a letter to “his counterparts around the world,” according to PressTV, similarly declaring the sanctions illegal and demanding no Iranian trade partners abide by them. PressTV did not specify which foreign ministers received the letter and did not disclose that Araghchi threatened the diplomats as Qalibaf had.
“No valid legal act has taken place that could restore the terminated resolutions,” Araghchi reportedly wrote. “To claim otherwise is an attempt to mislead the international community and to impose unilateral political agendas under the guise of United Nations authority.”
While Araghchi condemned the sanctions, PressTV noted that he admitted Iran now openly discusses violating the JCPOA. The propaganda outlet claimed that Iran “gradually reducing its compliance with the nuclear limits” was reasonable because of Trump’s decision to withdraw from the agreement in 2018 — which Trump made as a result of Iran systematically violating the agreement for three years.
“Iran, however, maintains that its reduction of commitments was a legal and legitimate response to the U.S. and EU failure to fulfill their obligations, and therefore the E3 are in no position to trigger the mechanism,” PressTV claimed.
The Iranian armed forces — whose most powerful wing, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization — took a much less measured approach to responding to the sanctions. Three major Iranian military leaders held an event on Sunday to galvanize the country against the West, threatening “powerful, brave, and crushing responses to threats.” The Iranian military, and the IRGC in particular, is struggling to rehabilitate itself after “Operation Rising Lion,” an Israeli military operation launched in June following the IAEA condemnation of Tehran. The operation eliminated the commander of the IRGC, Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, and several other key leaders.
At the meeting on Sunday, military leaders falsely claimed victory against Israel and the United States, which launched military strikes on Iran’s three most important nuclear sites shortly after “Operation Rising Lion,” praising the IRGC terrorist organization as “the factor behind the enemy’s defeat and the guarantor of Iran’s independence, national security, territorial integrity, and the protection of the ideals of the Islamic Revolution.”
“The great victories and remarkable achievements of the Armed Forces, particularly the IRGC and the Basij, prove that the strategy of active deterrence and delivering powerful, brave, and crushing responses to threats is effective,” Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi, was quoted as saying.
The Security Council snapback sanctions represent a major diplomatic defeat for Iran after intense lobbying of the relevant countries at the General Assembly last week. Iran sent its president, Masoud Pezeshkian, to address the General Assembly and hold meetings with relevant leaders to discourage restoring the sanctions. Pezeshkian argued that implementing the sanctions would render the JCPOA “meaningless” as it would hold Iran accountable for violating the deal.
“We welcome diplomatic talks to resolve the [nuclear] issue, but naturally, if the snapback is activated, dialogue will no longer be meaningful,” Pezeshkian said about the sanctions an interview.
Rafael Grossi, the IAEA director-general, has complained over the past year that the absence of material consequences for Iran’s violations of the agreement render it largely non-existent.
“Nobody applies it, nobody follows it. There have been attempts to revive it here in Vienna. But unfortunately, although they were relatively close to success, they failed for reasons unknown to me, because I was not involved in the process,” Grossi lamented in June 2024, stating the deal “exists only on paper and means nothing.”
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