WASHINGTON'S 'DELUSIONARY NEGATIVE POSTURES DO NOT AUGUR WELL' FOR FUTURE: SALEHI

The head of Iran's nuclear organization on Tuesday warned the United States against undermining the 2015 nuclear deal, saying international nonproliferation efforts as well as Washington's global standing would suffer.

Ali Akbar Salehi told an international conference in Paris on enhancing nuclear safety that Washington's recent “delusionary negative postures do not augur well” for keeping the deal intact, the Independent reported.

He said Iran didn't want to see the deal unravel but that “much more is at stake for the entire international community than the national interests of Iran.”

U.S. President Donald Trump is set to deliver a speech on Iran this week in which he is expected to decline to certify Iran's compliance in the landmark 2015 agreement, referring it to Congress, and perhaps targeting the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps with new sanctions.

Salehi praised the progress that had been made since the 2015 deal, saying nonproliferation and disarmament efforts had benefited worldwide. He called it “simply too precious to be allowed to be undermined or weakened.”

“The failure of the nuclear deal will undermine the political credibility and international stature of the U.S. in this tumultuous political environment,” Salhehi warned.

He concluded that he hoped “common sense shall prevail.”

The U.S. administration has faced two 90-day certification deadlines to state whether Iran is meeting the conditions needed to continue enjoying sanctions relief under the deal and has both times backed away from a showdown. But Trump more recently has said he does not expect to certify Iran's compliance with the October deadline looming.

On Monday, the European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, praised the 2015 deal as a “win-win” solution that was working.

“We prevented a dangerous devastating military escalation,” she told the conference via video message, adding that the International Atomic Energy Agency had certified Iran's compliance with the deal, including via inspections, eight times since it was signed.

She warned that with rising nuclear tensions on the Korean peninsula, “We have an interest and a responsibility and a duty to preserve the nuclear deal with Iran”.

Blix says quitting nuclear deal will be new affront to UN

Former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix also warned Monday that a U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal would be a new affront to the United Nations.

"If Mr. Trump cares for the authority of the United Nations then he cannot pull back unilaterally from that agreement," Blix said in Paris.

The Swedish former diplomat headed the inspection team that found no proof of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2002-03 as the United States was poised to invade the country.

Then President George W. Bush and his government insisted that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons and was developing nuclear arms.

Blix was speaking on the sidelines of a two-day International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe that started in Paris on Monday.

"I am a bit puzzled by Trump's lonely attitude... because the president has voiced his great disapproval" of the Iran deal in the face of "almost the unanimous international community standing in favor of it," he noted, according to AFP.

The nuclear agreement was struck in July 2015 by Iran and five permanent members of the UN Security Council (Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States) plus Germany - establishing controls to prevent Tehran from developing an atomic bomb.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano, speaking in Rome on Monday, affirmed Iran's commitment to the nuclear deal.

But Trump has said Tehran is not living up to the "spirit" of the agreement.

US officials insist "decertifying" Iran's compliance would not sink the deal itself but open the way for Congress to possibly develop new measures against Tehran.

Blix, who headed the IAEA from 1981 to 1987, led the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from 2000 until the eve of the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Source: Tehran Times