Adviser: US Seizure of Iran’s Assets against JCPOA Spirit
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The US move to confiscate the Central Bank of Iran’s assets goes against the spirit of a lasting nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, an international adviser to speaker of Iran’s parliament said, calling on the administration to send the case to the international courts.
Hossein Sheikholeslam told the Tasnim News Agency on Sunday that the seizure of Iran’s assets under a US court ruling runs counter to the spirit of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).
In essence, the JCPOA was meant to end the West’s language of force and allow Iran to engage in financial dealings, he added, hammering Washington for “plundering” Iran’s money on different pretexts.
Sheikholeslam then stressed that Iran should lodge a complaint against the US at the international courts, urging Iran’s office at The Hague to take the necessary judicial actions to prevent the US from robbing the Iranian nation.
It came after the US Supreme Court in April upheld the Congress and President Barack Obama’s actions to hold Iran financially responsible for a 1983 bombing that killed 241 Marines at their barracks in the Lebanese capital of Beirut.
The ruling allows the families of the Marines and victims of other attacks that courts have linked to Iran to seize some $2 billion in assets held in New York’s Citibank, belonging to the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), which has been blocked under US sanctions.
