In the meeting, Shafei criticized the South Korea’s government for its obeying the U.S. sanctions against Iran, saying that unfortunately approach in Iran has become negative towards Seoul and the ties between the two states have been affected.

He then pointed to the old trade cooperation between Iran and South Korea as its sign and trace is completely visible in Iran’s different active industries and called the negative impacts of observing U.S. sanctions by Seoul wonderful. He reiterated that unfortunately the performance of Seoul in following the U.S. sanctions led to the negative view of Iranians towards South Korea.

Shafei then pointed to freezing of considerable amount of Iran’s resources in South Korea, saying that this has happened in a condition that the trade of medicines and foods were not sanctioned but South Korea has denied cooperating with Iran while Iran could easily provide its medicines from Japan which had closer ties with the U.S. than South Korea.

Shafei then said the trade volume between Iran and South Korea has slumped to $2b from $17b and it is a great economic loss for both sides and added that due to South Korea’s approach during the sanctions era, Iranian economic activists sought replacement for South Korea and this will undoubtedly affect the future activities between the two countries.

He also called for resolving the problem of Iranian companies which have signed with their Korean counterparts and even they have pre-paid but have not received their goods yet.

Shafei added that in order to soften the condition, South Korea should find ways for compensation in order to boost its trade with Iran.

Then the South Korean ambassador, for his part, said that his country seeks to revive trade relations with Iran, adding that Iran’s dissatisfaction with South Korea’s stance on U.S. sanctions is sensible.

Yun pointed to a previous meeting he had held with the former Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, saying that the then Iranian president had expressed his frustration with the South Korean stance on the U.S. sanctions against Iran.

He added that he came to meet with the head of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce in an effort to revive bilateral relations between Tehran and Seoul.

He said that the U.S. sanctions against Iran harmed both the Iranian nation in the first place as well as the Korean economy to a lesser extent.

He put the amount of frozen Iranian assets in South Korea at $7 billion, saying that his country is interested in paying back the blocked financial resources to Iran in necessary ways.

“South Korea is looking for a new future, and in this regard, I promise to do my best to develop economic relations between the two countries,” the diplomat added.

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American officials should know that Iran will immediately return to its commitments as soon as they do so, and this is what the Supreme Leader has placed emphasis on, the president announced.

On the first anniversary of the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May 2019, Iran decided to reduce its commitments to the international deal, based on Articles 26 and 36 to reciprocate the US move.

As the president stressed, victory will be embraced soon if unity promotes.

Those who hatched a plot against Iran and the [Islamic] system have today admitted defeat, and this shows that “victory is near,” President Rouhani added.

Iran has called on the White House to return back to the international laws without hesitation and not to be ashamed of doing so, said the Iranian President on Wednesday. Rouhani made the remarks during a cabinet session on Wednesday, asserting that Islamic Republic will return to all its obligations immediately if the US returns back to its commitments.

“The Leader of the Islamic Revolution explicitly stated that if those who broke the deal return, we will also return to it”, Rouhani reiterated.

“Sanctions are the will of the Zionists and we should not allow the will of the Zionists to be implemented”, he stressed.

Referring to Biden’s tendency to return to the table of JCPOA, he expressed hope that the new US administration show in practice that it does not seek to continue economic terrorism against the Iranian nation and to violate international laws.

Elsewhere in his remarks, he emphasized the importance of unity against the economic war, saying, “Victory is not far away, it is near. The designers’ of maximum policy who sought to bring the Iranian nation to its knees, today explicitly admitted their own defeat.”

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If ratified, the plan will oblige the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI):

– to produce at least 120 kg of 20%-enriched uranium annually in Fordow nuclear site and store it inside the country within two months after the adoption of this law.

– to increase the enrichment capacity and production of enriched uranium (observing a peaceful amount) to at least 500 kg per month.

– to start the installation, injection of gas, enrichment, and storage of materials up to the appropriate degree of richness within 3 months, via at least 1000 IR-2m centrifuges in the underground part of Shahid Ahmadi Roshan facility in Natanz.

– to transfer any enrichment, research, and development operations of IR-6 centrifuges to the nuclear site of Shahid Ali Mohammadi in Fordow, and to start the enrichment operation via at least 164 centrifuges and expand it to 1000 by the end of 20 March 2021 (end of the Iranian calendar year)

– to return the 40 megawatts Arak heavy water reactor to its pre-JCPOA condition in a definite time by reviving the heart of the reactor within 4 months from the date of enactment of this law.

The plan will also oblige the government to suspend any regulatory access beyond the Additional Protocol within 2 months of the enactment of this law according to articles 36 and 37 of the JCPOA and if Iran’s banking relations in Europe and the oil sails condition fail to return to normal and satisfactory conditions within three months after the adoption of the law, the government is obliged to stop the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol.

Within three months of the enactment of the law, if the JCPOA member states adhere to their commitments, the government is required to submit a proposal to the Parliament over Iran’s reciprocal measure to return to its obligations under the deal, another part of the plan reads.

Speaking in this session, the chairman of the Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Mojtaba Zonnour condemned the US unilateral move of withdrawing from the JCPOA and its attempts to trigger a snapback mechanism so as to revive UN sanctions on Iran and its non-commitments to the international laws.

In this regard, all Iranian lawmakers of the Parliament must take appropriate measures in order to counter the oppressive and cruel sanction of the US against Iran, Zonnour added.

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According To Iran News, Iran’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN on Thu. censured the US unilateral embargoes and coercive sanctions against independent states such as Iran and Cuba, stressing his country’s resolve to offset the US unlawful measures.

Iran’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Es’hagh Al Habib made the remarks on Thursday in his address to the UN General Assembly focusing on “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”.

Full text of the statement reads as follows:

“Mr. President,

At the outset, I wish to take this opportunity to offer our warm welcome to Mr. Bruno Eduardo Rodríguez Parrilla, the Foreign Minister of Cuba.

My delegation associates itself with the statements delivered yesterday by the representatives of Palestine, Azerbaijan and Uganda, on behalf of Group of 77 and China, the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries as well as Organization of Islamic Conference. However, I would also like to add the following remarks in my national capacity.

Today, we are witnessing that the expansionist and arrogant approach of a certain Government presents the greatest threat and challenge to the world peace and security. The growing resort to unilateral coercive measures is one of the clear symptoms of unilateralism coupled with an interventionist, flawed and short-sighted foreign policy.

Among others, unilateral embargoes and coercive sanctions, as a means to achieving national policy objectives, have a seriously adverse impact on the promotion of peace at the regional and international levels. They are fundamental impediments to establishing not only a peaceful and prosperous world but also a just and equitable international order which is a vital prerequisite for sustainable development.

The inhumane sanctions and blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba for almost six decades is the most unjust and prolonged system of unilateral sanctions applied against any country. These aggressive measures constitute a gross violation of the norms and principles underpinning the international relations order. No Cuban citizen or sector of the economy has been immune from the negative effects of this unilateral policy which hinders the development that every country is entitled to construct in a sovereign manner.

In the past year, tightening of the blockade has continued to be the central pivot of US government policy towards Cuba, with ever more notable effects in its extraterritorial application.

Regretfully, we have observed that the US Department of State has on different occasions expanded the “Restricted List of Cuban Entities”, to the blockade regulations, which caused considerable damage to the country’s economy because of its effects of intimidating the international business community.

In fact, the US has been addicted to imposing unilateral sanctions when it comes to states that do not submit to or follow its contradictory and expansionist policies. In reality, Iran and Cuba are paying the price for their resistance and insistence on their independence from the United States’ colonialist policies. Iran has experienced the US unlawful sanctions since the triumph of the Islamic Revolution 40 years ago.

Within the last four decades, the US has imposed unilateral coercive measures on the Iranian people at an increasing rate to the extent that the current US Administration, defiant of the established norms, has even targeted importation of medicine and medical equipment. Thus, patients, women and children, refugees, poor and those in vulnerable situations have become the prime target of the US genocidal economic terrorism–against all principles of international law.

The US Administration wants the world to believe that it is concerned about the Iranian people. Yet the very first sanctions it reimposed have cancelled licenses for sales of more than 200 passenger jets under absurd pretexts, endangering ordinary Iranians. US hypocrisy knows no bounds.

The economic war that the United States has initiated under the rubric of putting “Maximum Pressure” through imposing new sanctions, not only targets the Iranian public but also has harmful repercussions for the peoples of other countries, and has disrupted the state of global trade.

The message of today’s meeting is a reaffirmation of the fact that the time for interventionist policies and interference in the farthest reaches of the world is long over.

Mr. President,

Iran will keep working with its partners to create a new environment in which self-respecting nations can pursue their own interests and international obligations. We will continue to work to offset unlawful US sanctions and irrevocably eliminate the destabilizing phenomenon of the US extraterritorial application of domestic legislation.

The world needs to find solutions against such destructive interventions and unilateralism.

Iran strongly believes in cooperating with friendly countries, including Cuba to address this challenge prudently and will not allow the US Administration, which has stripped the US foreign policy of any principles, to achieve its illegitimate objectives.

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Speaking to a group of Iranian expatriates in Frankfurt, Germany, during a stopover Sunday on his way home from attending the UN General Assembly in New York, Zarif said Europe had been trying “for five months” to create a credit line for Iran to sell its oil, “but it has failed to manage even such a minor job.”

“That’s because it (Europe) is not even allowed by its master to spend its own money for its own security.”

Earlier this month, France proposed offering a $15-billion line of credit to compensate Iran for not being able to sell its crude oil abroad because of US sanctions.

“When we enter talks with a European president whose country is a permanent member of the UN Security Council that has an atomic bomb, he tells us ‘I cannot do anything without President Trump’,” Zarif said. He did not name the European country, but the comment was interpreted as a reference to French President Emmanuel Macron.

“If these days you see that the Europeans are getting a little closer to the US and becoming its allies, it’s not because they saw us in a weak spot, but because they have failed to withstand the US,” Zarif said.

Tensions have been running high between Iran and the US since May 2018, when Trump unilaterally pulled out his country from the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and unleashed the “toughest ever” sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

The American president is a stern critic of the deal, which was clinched in July 2015 by Iran and the US, France, Britain, China, Russia, and Germany.

Ever since quitting the JCPOA, Trump has been trying to force Iran into accepting a more wide-ranging alternative that curbs Tehran’s missile program and regional influence.

Back in January, Britain, France, and Germany announced the establishment of a mechanism aimed at enabling non-dollar trade between the European Union and Iran, officially called the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX).

The apparatus is supposed to circumvent the sanctions that Washington began re-imposing against Iran after leaving the JCPOA. But in reality not much has been achieved. Trade with Iran has not surged via INSTEX, and Europe has not stood up to the US over its illegal sanctions against Iran.

The three European countries have so far failed to uphold their commitments. They have expressed vocal support for the JCPOA, but failed to provide meaningful economic incentives as required under the nuclear agreement.

Iran nuclear case

Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi on Monday dismissed the nuclear case being sent back to the UN Security Council if Iran goes ahead with its pledge to take new steps away from the 2015 deal in response to European failure.

British media have reported that the EU had told Iran that it would start withdrawing from the nuclear deal in November if Tehran further forwent its commitments.

According to BBC and The Guardian, this would trigger the deal’s dispute mechanism and if necessary a worldwide sanctions snap-back would occur, where Iran’s case would be sent back to the Security Council.

The council removed the case from its docket when it endorsed the JCPOA.

Speaking to reporters in Tehran, Mousavi said Iran’s referral to the Security Council again is “dead and from the legal standpoint, there is no possibility of Europe using the snap-back mechanism.”

Iran has already taken three separate calibrated steps away from the deal, and has warned it will take a fourth in November unless the Europeans do something about their obligation to protect Tehran from US sanctions.

The Europeans have, instead, told Iran that they would put the issue of Iran’s further moves into the agreement’s formal dispute mechanism if the next Iranian move away from the deal were significant, The Guardian reported on Friday.

Mousavi described Europe’s alleged plan to withdraw from the JCPOA as “illegal.”  He also criticized the Europeans for not being able to separate their foreign policy from that of Washington.

AP and Press TV contributed to this story.

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The snap back mechanism is a tool that allows the old United Nations sanctions to be reimposed on Iran without a vote on the Council, in the case of Tehran being found to be in serious violation of the terms of the nuclear agreement, under certain conditions and after following the predefined steps.

The other side wants to make it look as if the recent measures by Iran in reducing the level of its commitments to the JCPOA – which are in accordance with Article 26 and 36 of JCPOA – are a violation of the agreement in order to use the snap back mechanism against Iran.

But there are five reasons as to why the snap back mechanism cannot be used against Iran in this case.

One: The snap back mechanism has been designed to prevent Iran from violating the agreement. In other words, the mechanism has been set up in the case of Iran being the first party to withdraw from the nuclear deal. Of course, the first side to have left the agreement was the United States, and Iran’s compliance with its commitments have been confirmed time and again in all of the IAEA’s reports.

Two: According to the text of the JCPOA, the other side can use the snap back mechanism only when it “believes” that Iran’s performance is an instance of a major lack of compliance. According to a fundamental legal principle, this “belief” must be accompanied by “good faith”.  This is while none of the remaining parties to the JCPOA can actually claim with “good faith” that they “believe” in Iran’s major lack of compliance, since all of Iran’s measures have been legal, and are clearly taken so that all sides to the deal would fully implement their own commitments.

Three: Europe’s resorting to the snap back mechanism would be in fact a mockery of the international law, the UN Security Council and the UN’s collective security system. In other words, it would be the first time in history when the Security Council would be used to punish a country that only intends to use its legal tools to force others to implement a Security Council resolution (2231), and an agreement endorsed by the body.

Four: In order to accuse Iran of a violation, European powers first need to prove Iran’s ill intentions. This is while they all know that Iran’s only motivation and intention to reduce commitments is a way to actually revive the nuclear agreement.

Five: What European powers promised under the deal was never a “ceremonial” removal of sanctions. Article 3 of Appendix 2 of JCPOA clearly tasks Europe with removing the “impacts” of economic and financial sanctions. This means that the European sides are now clearly in violation of their commitments.

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Although the Iranian state broadcaster’s YouTube channels can still be accessed, no new content can be published, despite the media outlets stating that they have not violated any of Google’s policies.

The Times of Israel speculated Monday that the move by Google may have been in reaction to a publication by Hispan TV titled “Israel uses Palestinian prisoners for new medical trials.”

Hispan TV has announced that the censorship is the “price of being the voice of the oppressed,” while Press TV reported that Google “refused to offer an explanation for shutting down the accounts,” Forbes reported Tuesday.

“I think it’s really shocking,” Shadjareh told host John Kiriakou.

“We don’t expect anything [less] from [US President Donald] Trump and his administration than to behave in this way. And the international community has come to learn and accept this kind of outrageous behavior [against Iran],” he said, also noting that social media platforms and technology companies like Google are supposed to represent freedom of expression.

“We have been getting a lot of reports, which we [Islamic Human Rights Commission] are investigating right now, that companies like Google are putting algorithms in place so that if you search for certain issues, [the ranking] that comes up will be artificially manipulated, so those views are hidden and not presented… this is actually extremely dangerous, because it creates dictatorship of ideas and thoughts and it gives them [Google] absolute power to manipulate ideas and exclude certain views, and that is not really what social media is supposed to be,” Shadjareh added.

This is not the first time that the Iranian channels have been blocked by Google.

“[Our] original YouTube channel was established in December 2009 and closed in September 2013,” noted a recent report by Press TV. “A new channel was then opened, but it was shut [down] almost two months later. Another channel was opened, but it suffered the same fate after five months. The fourth channel, however, remained active with over 270,000 subscribers until it was closed today.”

Google’s actions coincide with the White House’s Monday announcement that it will not reissue sanctions waivers to countries that purchase Iranian oil after they expire in May. Washington has claimed that the decision “is intended to bring Iran’s oil exports to zero,” destroying a vital source of revenue for Tehran. The move to end waivers comes after the US withdrew from the so-called Iran Nuclear Deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, last year, triggering the reimposition of US sanctions against Tehran.

According to Shadjareh, the censorship move by Google will set a dangerous precedent for all “alternative views.”

“Alternative views are going to be put under pressure, and this is what is so dangerous,” Shadjareh told Sputnik.

“We know institutions, like the current Trump administration, want to keep people ignorant on certain realities. There seems to be coordinated effort to control what we read and control what we think and control how we behave, and this affects every single one of us, and it’s very dangerous to give this level of control to companies who are adhering to the Trump administration. This [sets] a very dangerous precedent.”

“Iranians are recognizing that they have to stand on their own merit. Countries like China, Russia, and Turkey will continue doing deals with them, but [the sanction efforts by the US] will… have an impact on not just Iran’s economy but economies of the West as the well. We need to recognize that we are all going to suffer because of the restrictions [against Iran] because of the erosion of our civil liberties,” he added.

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