Iran to respond to US measures within JCPOA framework: MP
US National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Sunday the US was deploying the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East.
“Bolton’s statement is a clumsy use of a burnt-out happening for psychological warfare,” Tasnim quoted Keyvan Khosravi, spokesman for the Supreme National Security Council, as saying. Khosravi said the carrier had arrived in the Mediterranean weeks ago.
Acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said on Monday he had approved dispatching the carrier strike group and bombers due to indications of a “credible threat by Iranian regime forces.” He provided no details of the underlying intelligence.
Iran‘s state-run Press TV earlier said: “The deployment seems to be a ‘regularly scheduled’ one by the US Navy, and Bolton has just tried to talk it up.”
Separately, a military adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the US was “neither willing nor capable” with respect to an attack on Iran, the semi-official news agency ISNA reported.
Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehgan said Washington would have a hard time convincing world opinion and regional countries to accept an all-out war against Iran, and to mobilize resources for such a conflict.
Iranian newspapers and commentators have widely dismissed Washington’s announcement as a “bluff” and “empty rhetoric.”
Iran said last month it was prepared for a US decision to end waivers granted to buyers of Iranian oil, as the elite Revolutionary Guards repeated their threat to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf if Tehran was barred from using it. Around 30 percent of the world’s seaborne oil exports get shipped through the strait.
While neither Shanahan nor Bolton elaborated on the gist of US intelligence, other American officials told Reuters there were “multiple, credible threats” against US forces on land, including in Iraq, by Iran and proxy forces and at sea.
Last week, President Donald Trump’s administration said it would end waivers for countries buying Iranian oil in an attempt to reduce Iran‘s crude exports to zero following Washington’s withdrawal from world powers’ 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran.
The administration also blacklisted Iran‘s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps.
US-Iranian tensions escalated further after Washington acted on Friday to force Tehran to stop producing low-enriched uranium and expanding its only nuclear power plant. Washington’s step intensified a campaign aimed at halting Tehran’s ballistic missile program and curbing its regional power.
Iran will revive part of its halted nuclear program in response to the US withdrawal from the nuclear accord but does not plan to pull out of the agreement itself, state media reported on Monday.
Iran to respond to US measures within JCPOA framework: MP
Iran's countermeasures against US hostile moves will be within the framework of the 2015 nuclear agreement (JCPOA), said a senior Iranian Member of Parliament Hossein Naqavi Hosseini on Tuesday.He said the American took more hostile actions against Iran, creating many obstacles on the country.
Iran cannot keep silent to these pressures and the government will definitely put certain measures on its agenda, the lawmaker said, adding that President Hassan Rouhani will issue certain decrees tomorrow.
However, he noted that the Iranian countermeasures will not run counter to international regulations such as Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The US withdrew from an international agreement endorsed by the United Nations and welcomed by the European Union and the international community, he said.
If the Europeans do the same and exit the deal, their act will be regarded against the international regulations, Naqavi Hosseini added.
Sources: Algemeiner / IRNA
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