Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif dismissed the possibility of sanctions being reimposed on Iran. PHOTO: Fars News Agency.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif claimed that with the recently agreed nuclear deal the international sanctions regime brought against his country has effectively collapsed and will be near-impossible to reimpose in the future, semi-official state news agency Fars reported on Tuesday.

“The structure of the sanctions that the U.S. had built based on the U.N. Security Council’s resolutions was destroyed and like the 1990s when no other country complied with the U.S. sanctions against Iran, no one will accept the return of sanctions,” Zarif told attendees at a meeting of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, on Monday.

Zarif — who was Iran’s chief negotiator for the deal — said that if world powers fail to follow up on the sustained removal of sanctions according to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran would be able to quickly reinstate elements of its nuclear program that were barred by the deal.

One of the main selling-points the U.S. administration has used to temper concerns over the nuclear deal is that sanctions can be “snapped back” immediately if Iran is found to have violated the agreement, though critics argue the country can drag its heels through the verification process for several weeks, hiding evidence of illicit nuclear activity as it goes.