Reciprocal Action Awaits Any JCPOA Breach

A senior parliamentary official warned the United States that it will face the Islamic Republic's retaliation, should it violate the Iran nuclear deal. The warning came a day after the House of Representatives voted to renew the Iran Sanctions Act for another decade.

"If America reneges on its obligations under the JCPOA, Iran will resort to reciprocal action," the spokesperson for Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Hossein Naqavi Hosseini, said in a talk with ICANA on Wednesday.

JCPOA stands for Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the formal title of the pact. The House voted 419 to one to pass the Iran Sanctions Act reauthorization, a law first adopted in 1996 to target Iran over its disputed nuclear activities.

The Iran measure will expire at the end of 2016 if it is not renewed.

It must still be passed by the Senate and signed by President Barack Obama to become law, Reuters reported.

The Obama administration and other world powers reached an agreement last year in which Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

  Misplaced Trust

Hosseini criticized the Iranian government for inaction against what he called the US failure to properly implement its side of the deal.

"The 10-year renewal of sanctions proved that those who have put trust in the US are gullible. We have seen no [effective] reaction from our diplomatic apparatus against the US lack of full commitment," he said.

The nuclear agreement, championed by President Hassan Rouhani, has faced the relentless criticism of his conservative rivals who claim it has conceded too much to the western side and compromised core principles of the Islamic Republic.

In relevant remarks before the House vote, Iran's top security official warned that the passage of the bill would set in motion the Islamic Republic's contingency plan devised to respond to any violation of JCPOA by the other side.

"Renewing Iran sanctions after the JCPOA is like kicking it away. Breaching the Vienna agreement would result in the immediate implementation of a package of technical measures," Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani was quoted as saying by Fars News Agency.

The vote took place one week after Republican Donald Trump was elected US president. Congressional Republicans unanimously opposed the nuclear deal, along with about two dozen Democrats, and Trump has also strongly criticized it.

There was no immediate word from Senate leaders on when the ISA might be taken up in that chamber.