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Iran would again comply with the nuclear deal an hour after the United States did, its president said, but faced increased pressure from the outgoing Trump administration after it sanctioned two Iranian officials for their alleged involvement in the kidnapping of a Former FBI agent. .
Hassan Rouhani also made it clear that he was not prepared to discuss any changes to the agreement or restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile program.
His remarks Monday, underscoring his determination to lift crippling US sanctions, came ahead of a meeting Wednesday of the joint commission, the body that brings together current signatories to the nuclear deal.
The commission would be the first opportunity for Iran and the agreement’s European signatories, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, to discuss a route back to the agreement for the United States under a new administration led by Joe Biden.
But Iran came under fresh pressure on Monday when the United States first blamed it for the alleged death of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing on Iran’s island of Kish in 2007.
“Senior Iranian officials authorized Levinson’s kidnapping and detention and launched a disinformation campaign to deflect blame from the regime,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement as the United States announced sanctions against two military officials. Iranian intelligence believed responsible for Levinson’s kidnapping. .
Meanwhile, plans for a slow thaw in EU-Iran relations have been derailed by the execution on Saturday of Ruhollah Zam, an Iranian journalist and blogger.
The execution caused the postponement of a three-day international conference on how to promote the economic partnership between Europe and Iran. Four Tehran-based EU envoys who were to speak at the conference withdrew in protest at what they described as the barbaric execution of Zam, a murder that was also denounced by Jake Sullivan, chosen by Joe Biden as national security adviser. .
The timing of Zam’s execution, immediately before the conference, was seen by some as an attempt by the hard line to sabotage any reconciliation through financial contacts.
Criticisms by the EU and the US of Iran’s human rights record raise questions about how big a hurdle that could become in shaping a rapprochement between Iran and the West. So far, Biden has said that at first he wants to focus on the narrow issue of lifting sanctions and for the United States to rejoin the agreement in exchange for Iran fully complying with its obligations to restrict its nuclear program.
Rouhani said in his press conference that European countries “have the right to comment, but Zam was executed by court decision,” and stressed that the judiciary was independent. “I think this is unlikely to harm relations between Iran and Europe,” he said.
The president also lashed out at his internal critics, saying some wanted to maintain US sanctions on Iran for another five years.
Ellie Geranmayeh, senior policy researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the episode served as a reminder to both sides “that human rights will continue to be an influential factor in how ties develop regardless of the fate of the nuclear deal.” .
Iran viewed Zam not as a journalist, but as an agitator of the street protests in 2017. A news agency close to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said last week that he had been captured in Iraq and taken to Iran.
Pompeo also called the execution “unfair, barbaric”, adding in a cheep: “Zam exposed the brutality and corruption of the regime, which has killed or arrested more than 860 journalists in its 41-year reign of terror.”
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