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RFL/RE – Iranian President Hassan Rohani says his country will continue scaling back on compliance of its nuclear deal with world powers unless other signatories to the agreement show “positive signals.”
Speaking on June 15 at a summit of Asian leaders in Dushanbe, Rohani said his country “has made a decision to terminate the implementation of some of its obligations” under the 2015 nuclear deal.
He did not specify what obligations Iran would scale back on or say what positive signals Tehran wants to see.
In May, Iran stopped complying with some commitments in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the accord and reimpose sanctions.
“Obviously, Iran cannot stick to this agreement unilaterally,” Rohani told Russian, Chinese, and other Asian leaders at the summit of the 27-member regional grouping called the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building-Measures in Asia (CICA).
He said Tehran is “continuing to adhere” to some commitments under the deal. But he said the decision to scale back on additional obligations was made because of what he called “confrontation” by the United States, Trump’s “withdrawal from this deal,” and the imposition of what he called “illegal unfounded sanctions supported by other parties.”
“In the absence of positive comment from other parties, Iran will continue working” toward ending its adherence to some of its obligations under the nuclear deal, Rohani told the CICA summit.
The June 15 summit is being attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and leaders from Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and India who had all gathered a day earlier in neighboring Kyrgyzstan for a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
Other members of the CICA group represented at the Dushanbe summit on June 15 include Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Mongolia, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, South Korea, and Arab states from the Persian Gulf region.
Observers at the Dushanbe summit include the United States, Ukraine, Belarus, Japan, the United Nations, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Speaking at the start of the June 15 summit, Putin said Moscow would adhere to the agreement and urged other signatories to do so as well.
Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov says Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “briefly talked on the go” before the beginning of the CICA summit.
Peskov said the foreign ministers of Russia and Turkey also took part in the conversation, which lasted for several minutes.
On June 14, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey’s government will retaliate against any possible sanctions imposed against Ankara by the United States over Turkey’s deal to buy the S-400 surface-to-air missile-defense system from Russia.
Ankara’s deal with Russia has damaged relations between Turkey and the United States, which are both NATO allies.
Washington has warned turkey of possible sanctions if Ankara takes delivery of the Russian missile system.
