After Republican Debate, Iran Claims Next US President Can’t Discard Nuclear Deal
by David Daoud

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister claimed that the JCPOA prevents the next U.S. president from discarding the deal. PHOTO: Fars News.
A senior Iranian official claimed that the nuclear deal agreed last month between world powers and Iran can’t be rescinded by a future U.S. president, semi-official state news agency Fars reported on Sunday.
“There is a paragraph in the agreement which requires the U.S. administration to stop implementation of the sanctions [against Iran] permanently and this means that there won’t be a change once [U.S. President Barack] Obama leaves the office,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi said, addressing a meeting held in Tehran on Sunday to study the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Takht-Ravanchi’s comments come after some candidates for the 2016 U.S. presidential elections pledged to discard the JCPOA if they were to win. The comments were reiterated during a Republican Party primary debate hosted by Fox News on Thursday night.
On Sunday, Takht-Ravanchi also said that he did not foresee any of the countries party to the agreement backing away from the deal, and asserted that it would be a strategic mistake for the United States to do so, since it would pit Washington against the United Nations and isolate the U.S. internationally.