MP urges backup plans by administration against potential US breach of deal

An Iranian lawmaker says the administration of President Hassan Rouhani should prepare contingency plans to proportionately respond to a potential breach by the United States of a multi-lateral nuclear deal with Iran.

According to Press TV, MP Mojtaba Zon-Nour, who heads the Parliament (Majlis)’s Nuclear Committee of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said in case the US president fails to veto the two anti-Iran bills, the Rouhani administration will have to be able to respond in kind.

Zon-Nour said the measures at the Congress were in clear contravention of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal signed between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, including the US, in 2015.

In case they are not vetoed, he said, “the [Iranian] administration should be ready to take countermeasures and to deliver a stiff response to them by increasing the number of centrifuges and increasing uranium enrichment as well as other steps,” Tasnim news agency reported on Saturday.

The JCPOA removed all nuclear-related sanctions against Iran in exchanges for limits to the country’s nuclear program, including caps on enriched uranium stockpiles, and enhanced access to international monitors to nuclear facilities.

Zon-Nour also said that, as enshrined in the JCPOA, countries have a right to sell aircraft to Iran and the country is authorized to engage in related transactions.

The Iranian Parliament has passed a law obliging the government to respond to potential contraventions of the nuclear agreement, he said.

Iran has already said it is prepared for any “possible eventuality.”

SS