Inspectors revealed Iran is continuing to limit its uranium enrichment as newest round of sanctions take hold of Iranian public
United Nations officials reported on Thursday that Iran is still complying with the 2015 nuclear deal it entered into with the Obama administration, three months after President Donald Trump announced he was withdrawing from the agreement.
Trump’s decision was among many in the past 19 months which have alienated the U.S. from the international community—and observers including National Iranian American Council (NIAC) founder Trita Parsi noted that Iran now seems intent on continuing that estrangement—allowing the Trump administration to become a global “pariah.”
As Trump continues to violate the #IranDeal, the IAEA issues its 12th report confirming Iran is continuing to honor the agreement, despite the US reimposing sanctions and seeking to destabilize #IranDeal.
Iran's strategy is to let the US be the pariah…https://t.co/76aIvlWuX0
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) August 30, 2018
Repeating the conclusion it came to a number of times between 2015 and this past May when Trump withdrew from the deal, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran is continuing to honor the terms of the agreement, limiting the amount of uranium it enriches and stores, according to Reuters.
Trump’s decision to back out of the agreement was made despite protests from the other nations who were party to the deal; against the advice of the United Nations and the wishes of 56 percent of the American public.
Meanwhile, just as Iran’s strict adherence did not stop Trump from abandoning the deal, it also did not stop the president from imposing harsh sanctions, which have begun to take hold in Iran.
In addition to the high unemployment rates resulting from decades of sanctions — with a 13 percent overall jobless rate and about a third of Iranians between the ages of 15 and 29 out of work—the public is feeling the effects of medicine shortages and the sharp devaluation of the country’s currency.
“Sanctions hurt ordinary people on the streets and do not inflict pain at all whatsoever on the government,” a physician named Meisam, whose family has struggled to obtain cancer treatment for his grandmother in recent weeks, told the Independent. “How is withholding chemotherapy from my 80-year-old grandmother helpful to anyone’s objective?”
Trump gleefully took note of the sanctions’ impact earlier this month, tweeting that the country’s economy “is going very bad, and fast!” and suggesting Iranians’ suffering could bring officials to the negotiating table—a possibility that was dismissedThursday by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Negotiations with Iran is what all U.S. governments need. They need to maneuver and pretend that, "we have even made the Islamic Republic of Iran sit at the negotiations table.” So, like I previously elaborated and argued, no negotiations will be held with U.S. officials.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) August 30, 2018
Negotiations with former U.S. officials, who at least saved some face, bore such results! With current brazen U.S. officials—who have unsheathed their swords against Iranians—what negotiations can we have? Thus no negotiations with any U.S. official at any level will be held.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) August 30, 2018
The continued punishment of Iranian civilians will only serve to anger ordinary citizens and officials who have previously taken part in hard-fought negotiations, as well as bolstering political hardliners in Tehran, NIAC president Jamal Abdi warned.
“The grievous harm sanctions cause the Iranian people cannot be overstated: As the economy and unemployment levels make daily life unbearable for millions of Iranians, families are choked off from life-saving medicines and starved of critical infrastructure,” Abdi told the Independent. “These sanctions will threaten Iran’s compliance with the nuclear accord, while also undercutting hopes for Iranian moderation, harming the Iranian middle class, and empowering Iranian hardliners and extremists.”
Via Common Dreams
