MOSCOW, September 1. /TASS/. The United States’ policies towards Iran and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for the Iranian nuclear program are reminiscent of a bull in a china shop, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told an audience of teachers and students of MGIMO University on Tuesday.
"Although it has pulled out of the JCPOA, the United States is now trying to use the complex legal mechanism, established under this agreement, which envisages the possibility of reintroducing UN sanctions against Iran and canceled in 2015 after the conclusion of the JCPOA," he said. "This is unbelievable. Firstly, there are no reasons for reintroducing the sanctions, because Iran has complied with all of its obligations. Secondly, the United States has lost all of JCPOA rights, because it pulled out of it. I do remember that the mascot of the Republican Party is an elephant, but the world is not a porcelain shop."
Lavrov recalled that the United States, when it already abandoned the JCPOA, tried to push through a decision that would prolong the weapons embargo on Iran, scheduled to expire in October.
"The US argued that by selling arms Iran would destabilize the region. The resolution was supported only by two votes. All others were either against or abstained. Now the US is trying to achieve the restoration of UN Security Council’s sanctions," Lavrov said.
The future of the Iranian nuclear deal was called in question after the United States’ unilateral pullout on May 8, 2018 and Washington’s introduction of oil export sanctions on Tehran. Iran argues that all other participants, in the first place, Europeans, have defaulted on some of their obligations under the economic part of the deal, so for this reason the agreement in its current form is senseless.