‘New anti-Iran sanctions will end nuclear talks’

An Iranian lawmaker says the potential adoption of new sanctions against Iran will be the end point of nuclear negotiations with the country.

“Efforts by American senators will definitely hurt the process of negotiations and destroy the agreements reached in the Geneva III [negotiations],” said head of the Majlis Foreign Policy Subcommittee Vahid Amadi.

“The adoption of new sanctions by Senate contradicts the essence of the Geneva agreement and if this happens, the Iranian nation’s wall of distrust … will become taller.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, who introduced the bill on December 19, has defended it as an “insurance policy” for diplomacy.

The administration of US President Barack Obama has insisted that the new sanctions scenario would damage talks between Iran and the world powers and threatened to veto the bill.

“If the Western parties unilaterally contravene the agreements made in Geneva III [negotiations], the right is definitely reserved for the Islamic Republic of Iran to return whatever it committed itself to doing under Geneva III to its original state,” Ahmadi said.

Under the Geneva deal, reached between Iran and the P5+1 (permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) last year, the six countries agreed to provide Iran with some sanction relief in exchange for Iran agreeing to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities during a six-month period. It was also agreed that no nuclear-related sanctions would be imposed on Iran within the same timeframe.

In December, a group of 10 senior Democratic senators sent a letter to US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expressing their opposition to the bill.