TEHRAN - Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warns that allowing the U.S. to go to the full length of its ill-intentioned campaign to destroy the historic 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers promises return to the law of jungle.

Zarif made the comments in an article he wrote in the French newspaper Le Monde published on Wednesday, Press TV reported.

Through its obdurate campaign to bring about the total annihilation of the agreement, the United States is threatening to devastate what is left of multilateralism and international law, he wrote.

Known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the agreement was concluded between the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 group of countries in Vienna in 2015, which at that time included the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, and China plus Germany.

Zarif reminded that the deal was made to address all concerns regarding “the exclusively peaceful nature of our nuclear program,” while freeing the Iranian people from inhumane and unjust sanctions.

In May 2018, however, U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled his country out of the deal and later re-imposed the sanctions that the deal had lifted. The U.S. intransigence flew in the face of the fact that the accord has been ratified by the United Nations Security Council in the form of its Resolution 2231.

Ever since, the U.S. has also been threatening other countries into toeing its sanction line and abandoning their legal trade with Iran.

Zarif said in the article that as a result of the U.S. behavior, Iran has been the target of “the most vicious and indiscriminate sanctions.”

The U.S. has slapped the harshest sanctions in history against Iran. The purpose behind the sanctions is to strangle the Iranian economy.

‘U.S. punishing all those who abide by law’

The U.S. “inflexibility and unpredictability” have nothing to do with the precepts of the “game theory,” in which players are expected to take rational decisions, Zarif said, adding that Washington is just after punishing any party, which adheres to international law.

“Whether in the case of its domestic mismanagement of COVID-19 or the undermining of peace and stability abroad, the current administration in Washington has no real plans other than to blindly attack all those who defend the rule of law,” the article read.

The top diplomat concluded that with its current behavior, the United States is just shying away from offering any prospect for the future of the global community, and warned that it is “neither desirable nor viable” to allow Washington a free hand in its actions.

Writing in the Global Times on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Zarif also warned that if the United States is allowed to ignore international law “the world will slide backwards toward a ‘might makes right’ standard”.
In his article, entitled “International community must stop U.S. destroying the world of laws”, Zarif said, “The U.S. now hopes to abuse its mal-interpretation of the provisions of the same resolution (2231) it abandoned in 2018 to finally destroy it.”

The U.S., which is no longer a party to the nuclear deal, has launched a relentless campaign to extend arms embargo against Iran in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231 which endorses the JCPOA.

According to the resolution, the arms embargo is to expire on October 18. The UN Security Council was expected to vote on a draft U.S. resolution to extend arms embargo. The Trump administration has threatened to return UN sanctions on Iran if the resolution is rejected.  

“As I warned the Security Council last month, this status quo is neither desirable nor sustainable. We are thus at a crossroads,” Zarif wrote in his article in the Global Times.

NA/PA