TEHRAN: Iran has said that if the US congress approves new sanctions on the Islamic Republic, the deal which it reached with the six major world powers in the Swiss city of Geneva in November will be canceled. In addition, Iran said that it is not ready to hold talks under pressure.
“If the US congress wants to pressure us on new pretexts, we’d say with certainty that we won’t negotiate under pressure at all, and if new sanctions are imposed, the Geneva deal would be canceled,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Seyyed Abbas Araqchi said.
Meanwhile, in a written statement the US President Barack Obama said that he would veto any legislation enacting new sanctions against Iran.
“Imposing additional sanctions now will only risk derailing our efforts to resolve this issue peacefully, and I will veto any legislation enacting new sanctions during the negotiation,” Obama said.
Earlier, Iran and the six world powers including the US, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany which met in Geneva to sort out a mechanism to put into force the landmark interim deal struck between the two sides in November, agreed to implement the Iran nuclear deal from January 20.
On November 24, Iran with the US and five other world powers struck a historic nuclear deal in Geneva to pave the way for the full resolution of the decade-old dispute over its nuclear energy program.
As part of the deal which would last for the six-month period only, the world powers agreed to lift some of the existing sanctions against Iran, in exchange for Tehran’s confidence-building bid to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities.
