Iranian President Hassan Rouhani slams the US’s withdrawal from the 2015 multilateral nuclear deal, saying the United Nations should not allow any country to make a habit of breaching international commitments, especially those under Security Council resolutions.
Rouhani made the remarks in a meeting with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday during his stay in New York for the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly.
“The United Nations should shoulder its responsibility to strengthen the rules of international law so that no country could renege on its international commitments, including Security Council resolutions, at its own desire,” Rouhani said.
He said promise-breaking and lawlessness should not turn into a routine trend in the international community.
“Transparent positions of the UN secretary general will be effective in preserving the JCPOA as a symbol of successful deal making and an outcome of dialog and diplomacy,” he added, using an acronym for the official name of the Iran deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Iran has so far lived up to its commitments under the JCPOA despite the illegal US exit, said Rouhani, urging the UN to help get its member states to take practical measures to protect the JCPOA besides adopting political positions on the matter.
Back in May, President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the JCPOA despite objections from the other signatories to the accord.
Besides re-imposing the anti-Iran sanctions it had lifted under the accord, the Trump administration has also been seeking to discourage the European firms from doing business with Iran by threatening them with penalties.
Elsewhere in his comments, Rouhani expressed Tehran’s readiness to cooperate with the UN in resolving regional and international issues such as the crises in Yemen and Syria.
“Iran, Turkey and Russia have been able to take good steps in establishing peace and security as well as fighting terrorism in Syria,” the president said.
He also expressed concerns about the humanitarian situation in Yemen, urging the UN to play a more active role in the impoverished country and deliver humanitarian aid to its citizens.
The UN chief, for his part, hailed Iran’s reaction in the face of Washington’s pullout from the nuclear agrrement.
As an international agreement, the JCPOA is endorsed by the United Nations and the Security Council and should be fully implemented, Guterres said.
He added that the UN encourages Europe and Iran’s other partners to stand against unilateral US sanctions, which the UN chief said do not conform to UN rules and could entail “humanitarian and economic consequences.”
The UN secretary general further appreciated Iran’s efforts to resolve the Syria crisis and called for closer cooperation between Tehran and the world body concerning the counter-terrorism fight and aid delivery to crisis-hit people.