JEDDAH: The clock began ticking on Tuesday for the restoration of full UN sanctions against Iran for breaching the 2015 deal to curb its nuclear program.
France, Britain and Germany formally triggered the dispute mechanism in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the strongest step the Europeans have taken to enforce the agreement.
US President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018, since when Iran has gradually broken its pledges to scale back nuclear activities, culminating on Jan. 6 when it scrapped all limits on enriching uranium.
“We do not accept Iran’s argument that it is entitled to reduce compliance with the JCPOA,” the three countries said on Tuesday. “We have therefore been left with no choice, given Iran’s actions.”
They formally notified the EU, the guarantor of the agreement, that the dispute mechanism should begin. “At some point we have to show our credibility,” a European diplomat said.
The dispute process begins with a 30-day discussion period. If the complaint about Iran’s behavior remains unresolved, it is referred to the UN Security Council. After a further 30 days, sanctions from all previous UN resolutions will be reimposed unless the Security Council votes otherwise, which is unlikely.
The three European countries acted because they had “finally given in to the reality of US sanctions,” the security analyst Dr. Theodore Karasik told Arab News. “The dispute resolution mechanism leads directly back to UN sanctions, and ensures the end of the JCPOA so that a new process can start when Iran behaves like a normal country.
“The move may prompt Iran to leave the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty altogether, which would add further evidence of Tehran’s intent,” said Karasik, a senior adviser to Gulf State Analytics in Washington, DC.
Iran “never had the intention to stick to the already flawed nuclear deal to begin with,” said Salman Al-Ansari, founder of the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee, a Washington lobby group.
“The EU should follow the logical US stance by putting maximum pressure and full sanctions on Iran until they get back to the table and behave like a normal nation state.”
Countdown to UN sanctions on Iran over nuclear deal
https://arab.news/9zbfd
Countdown to UN sanctions on Iran over nuclear deal
- France, Britain and Germany formally triggered the dispute mechanism in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
British mother calls for son’s repatriation from Syria
- Jack Letts has been held for more than 9 years without trial after joining Daesh
- Fears raised for his safety amid US move to transfer thousands of detainees to Iraq
LONDON: A British-born man being held in the Syrian Arab Republic should be repatriated to Canada or the UK, his mother has said.
Jack Letts, 30, joined Daesh aged 18 and was captured by Syrian-Kurdish forces in 2017. He has been held for nine years without trial.
Recent fighting between Syrian government and Kurdish forces has raised concerns about security in the region, with Letts one of 7,000 prisoners who could be moved to more secure locations.
Last week, US Central Command said it had begun to airlift prisoners out of Kurdish-run prisons.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio thanked Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani on Sunday after revealing that 150 of the most dangerous detainees had been sent to “secure facilities” in the neighboring country.
Letts’ mother Sally Lane said she is “frantically trying to find out as much as possible” about her son’s situation.
“We’ve heard absolutely nothing. They think we don’t deserve to know,” she said. “I can’t see that western governments will allow their citizens to be put on trial in Iraq where they have the death penalty and flawed trials.”
Letts was stripped of his UK citizenship in 2019, leaving him with Canadian citizenship as it is the country of his father’s birth.
He has had no contact with his family in the intervening years, but has been interviewed a number of times by Western news outlets.
“I’m not going to say I’m innocent. I’m not innocent. I deserve what comes to me. But I just want it to be … not just haphazard, freestyle punishment in Syria,” he told ITV in 2019.
In a later interview with a Canadian broadcaster, he claimed to have been a victim of Daesh, saying he was imprisoned by the group on three occasions after rejecting its ideology.
Lane said Letts should be returned to the UK or Canada to stand trial if terror charges can be brought. “If there’s evidence, put them on trial. But there is no evidence,” she added.
Rubio and Al-Sudani discussed “ongoing diplomatic efforts to ensure countries rapidly repatriate their citizens in Iraq, bringing them to justice,” the US State Department said.
Lane said she does not believe that her son is significant enough to have been transferred as part of the priority airlift, but voiced concerns after Centcom said it plans to complete the operation in “days not weeks.”
She added: “Jack’s small fry. He’s mostly been held in local prisons. He’s high profile only because he’s been in the news.”
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper told the BBC last week that she had been “in touch” with Rubio to discuss the situation in Syria, with “shared interests in countering terrorism and extremism” on the agenda.
The news came after revelations that the UK had repatriated six women and 10 children from Kurdish-run prison camps in northern Syria in recent years, with 55 more people still in detention.
