Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna

Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna has lambasted the US for trying to present Washington as still a participant to Iran’s nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), saying such attempts have no future.

The US attempts to present itself as ‘JCPOA participant’ have no future. It is like common sense mockery. Those who invented this idea gave bad advice to US authorities. Cynical approaches must have their own limits in order not to compromise the national policy to the worst extent, Mikhail Ulyanov said on Twitter on Wednesday.

The landmark nuclear deal had been reached between Iran and five other countries - the US, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China in 2015. However, in May 2018, American President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled his country out of the JCPOA and later re-imposed the sanctions that had been lifted against Tehran and began unleashing the toughest ever fresh sanctions.

An arms embargo imposed by the UN Security Council against Iran - in place since 2006/2007- will be lifted in October 2020, under the world body’s Resolution 2231 that enshrined JCPOA).

However, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whose country is no longer a participant of the nuclear deal, said Wednesday that Washington was considering every possibility to renew the ban on selling conventional arms to Iran.

He said the US administration was urging the E3 to take action which is within their capacity today.

We’ll work with the UN Security Council to extend that prohibition on those arms sales, Pompeo continued, insisting that Washington is technically still a participant of the JCPOA despite Trump’s official withdrawal from the deal.

But later in the day, European officials told CNN that the E3 - Britain, Germany and France - would not back the US call for renewing the embargo.

A European source stressed that the countries still in the agreement cannot support the US proposal because the arms embargo’s expiration is a formal and legal part of the treaty.

You won’t see the E3 signing up for that because the arms embargo end is a legitimate part of the JCPOA, he said.

With the date of the removal of the arms embargo nearing, Washington has shared with some members of the UN Security Council a draft resolution to prolong the embargo indefinitely.

On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Tehran must not give in to Washington’s provocations in the Persian Gulf.

We are urging maximum restraint and caution, not to give in to provocations and aggressive rhetoric, she said at a press conference on Moscow.

Moscow has always considered stability and security in the Persian Gulf to be a key factor that influences the situation in the wider regional context, Zakharova added.

Her comments came as the US and Iran traded barbs over a spate of incidents during the past year involving their forces in the sensitive waters of the Persian Gulf.

Just recently, Trump alleged in a tweet that he had ordered the US Navy to shoot down and destroy Iranian gunboats that harass American ships in the Persian Gulf, following a recent confrontation between US warships and Iranian military boats in the waters.

Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) hit out at the unprofessional and perilous behavior of US warships in the waterway, and said they had caused trouble for one of the force’s logistics ships that was on a routine patrol.

The General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces also said early in the week that the presence of the US and its allies in the West Asia region had been the source of insecurity for regional countries, warning that any provocative move by US forces would be met with Iranian Armed Forces’ strong response.

In an apparent response to Trump’s tweet, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said during a cabinet session on Wednesday that the Americans should know that this waterway is called ‘the Persian Gulf.’ It is not called ‘the New York Gulf’ or ‘the Washington Gulf.’

SOURCE: PRESS TV