Is new Persian Gulf nuclear crisis coming?

The head of Iran’s nuclear agency Ali Akbar Salehi said that Tehran calls on the parties, which signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), to comply with their obligations. 

Salehi made the remark in a speech at the 61st International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference in Vienna.

"It is not the time to give a detailed analysis of the unacceptable difficulties and obstacles, created by one of the participants creates," he said. Salehi also drew attention to the fact that "all participants must fulfill nuclear agreements, ensure their integrity." "Each country must fulfill its obligations," RIA Novosti cited Iran's Vice President as saying.

Salehi pointed out that "any measures aimed at weakening or nullifying the provisions of the nuclear agreement under any pretext of political motivation and convenient reservations will surely jeopardize this historic achievement." "It will not only damage the parties, but the entire international community," he stressed.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency also recalled that the IAEA confirmed "Iran's honest and faithful fulfillment of its obligations under this agreement."

US President Donald Trump earlier said Iran had violated the agreement's "spirit".

"The Iran deal is one of the worst deals I've ever seen, certainly at a minimum the spirit of the deal is atrociously kept," Trump said aboard Air Force One. "The Iran deal is not a fair deal to this country. It's a deal that should not have ever been made," he added.

"We have to recognize the fundamental flaws in this deal," US National security advisor Herbert McMaster said about President Obama's agreement with Iran. "It is - as the president said - the worst deal."

"It gave all these benefits to the Iranian regime upfront and these benefits, now they are using, to foment this humanitarian catastrophe in the greater Middle East," he explained.

A senior research fellow of the Institute for Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Sazhin, speaking with the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, said that there is no JCPOA 'spirit' in the agreement in the form the Americans call it. "Iran continues to comply with the JCPOA requirements and the UN Security Council resolutions, which is confirmed by the IAEA. There can be no contradiction in the essence of the implementation of these two important documents. When the Americans say that Iran does not follow the 'spirit' of the JCPOA, they mean the missile program, which is not mentioned in the agreement. There is only one paragraph in the Security Council resolution, which says that it is not recommended for Iran to hold missile tests," he pointed out.

In this regard, Washington has no legal grounds to make claims to Tehran, despite the testing of Iranian missiles. "The Trump administration and Trump himself regularly oppose all the initiatives that were implemented by the Obama administration, so they say that the JCPOA is beneficial only to Iran, although the entire Iranian nuclear program is under control now," Vladimir Sazhin recalled.

"The missile program, of course, embarrasses the whole world, especially if Iran cooperates with North Korea, and they have already had contacts on missile programs. The fact is that missiles with a range of 1000 km are effective only as carriers of nuclear or chemical weapons, since they are completely pointless in conventional equipment. Which means that Iran can develop such missiles primarily as nuclear weapons carriers, and this is what the US is really worried about," the expert added.

As for the possibility of dissolving a nuclear deal, Washington will not do it, no matter what politicians say. "If the US withdraws from the JCPOA, it will lead to very bad consequences for the Americans themselves, because the agreement is supported by China, Russia, and which is most important for the US, the EU. The EU is very interested in lifting sanctions because of the desire to develop serious cooperation with Iran. The US may become an outcast, because no one will support the US withdrawal fro the deal," Vladimir Sazhin noted.