(Asharq Al-Awsat-UK) Amir Taheri - No one has signed and no legislature has ratified the 179-page press release known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - the nuclear deal with Iran. The mullahs of Tehran have pretended that the JCPOA is a bona fide international treaty under which all sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic will be lifted. Yet Tehran has agreed to a set of mostly cosmetic concessions that leave its nuclear program intact. Since Trump's election, the mullahs have started referring to UN Security Council Resolution 2231 as the basis for the agreement. This is interesting because Rouhani and his team had repeatedly asserted that they do not accept that "cruel and unjust" resolution, just as Iran never accepted any of the six previous resolutions passed by the Security Council with regard to the Iranian nuclear problem. Now that the mullahs have suddenly started casting themselves as ardent defenders of Resolution 2231, the new American president could demand that Tehran formally and officially accept the UN resolution. Articles 11 and 12 of the resolution enable any member of the Security Council to bring a case alleging non-compliance by Iran. That would trigger the so-called snap-back process under which the council would have to review the whole situation again and come up with a new decision within 30 days. If there is no accord after 30 days, the six previous UN Security Council resolutions would be re-activated with suspended sanctions re-imposed by all UN members. Thanks to its right of veto, the U.S. would be able to prevent any new council decision that might try to fudge the issue. The writer was executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979.
2016-11-22 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive