Iran won’t take US bait to scrap accord: Officials
A senior lawmaker says the US is provoking Iran to leave the 2015 nuclear accord with world countries, but the Islamic Republic will not withdraw from the deal.
"It's a conspiracy of the Americans who want to pressure the people and the government to get out of the JCPOA and pay the cost of stopping it," Hossein Naghavi Hosseini told Tasnim news agency on Saturday.
Naghavi Hosseini, who is the spokesman for the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of Iran's parliament, was referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action as the nuclear accord is known.
Meanwhile, media reported on Saturday that the parliament has approved a special plan aimed at countering hostile US measures in the region.
Naghavi Hosseini said the Americans continue to treat Iran with "enmity, spite and hostility" despite the nuclear agreement, adding the "Americans have become more emboldened after the JCPOA and their hostilities increased."
"After the conclusion of the JCPOA, it was expected that the Americans would moderate their hostilities and enmities to some extent.
"But you saw that not only did this not happen and the hostilities were not tempered, but they also intensified these hostilities, so that since the implementation of the JCPOA, the Americans have imposed new sanctions or breached their covenant and the accord for more than 17 times," he said.
The MP likened the US to "a brute that if you stand against it, it will also stand; if you follow it, it will run away but if you retreat, it will come after you and follow you up to your doorsteps."
Also, Iran's First Vice President Es'haq Jahangiri, said the new American administration is "a new trend which is engaged in designing measures with a more hardline approach than before against the Islamic Republic."
"The Islamic Republic of Iran will not only not retreat in the face of threatening moves, but it will take harsher measures or proportionate with them," he said on Saturday.
Jahangiri said a committee supervising the implementation of the JCPOA, which is headed by President Hassan Rouhani, is monitoring US moves, adding if the panel deems the Americans to be violating the accord, "the Islamic Republic of Iran will react severely."
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