Tehran, Iran, July 22
By Temkin Jafarov, Mehdi Sepahvand -- Trend:
A senior Iranian diplomat says the country's nuclear agreement will leave no sanctions on the country's arms dealing.
There are to be no arms sanctions, but rather restrictions whether Iran can purchase arms, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in a press conference here July 22.
Under previous sanctions, Iran could sell no arms whatsoever or purchase any of the seven types of weapons enumerated in the sanctions, he said.
But the newly instated restrictions say Iran will have to acquire permission from the UN Security Council for any arms deal it would like to make, according to Araqchi.
"Nonetheless, he added, all these restrictions are to be lifted after five years," he said.
"Also, there is a very special and important report to be given by the IAEA called the Broader Conclusion. This will indicate that the IAEA not only has surveillance over all of Iran 's known nuclear material, sites, and activities, but guarantees that there is no untold nuclear material, sites, or activities in the country."
Furthermore, Araqchi said, such a report is not a necessary part for the realization of any stage defined in the nuclear deal to neutralize Iran's case, that is, it can only facilitate the procedures and precipitate the lifting of the arms restrictions, but lack of such report will not cause the extension of the five-year period.
Araqchi went on to state that the said restrictions do not relate to defense arms or equipment, concluding that the case of Iran's purchase of S300 defense system from Russia is in no way bound to these restrictions.
The restrictions are part of a comprehensive nuclear deal Iran made with the group P5+1 (the US, UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany) on July 14. The deal, which was ratified by UN Security Council Resolution 2231 on July 20, will remove all international sanctions on Iran.
Russia signed a contract in 2007 to sell Iran five S-300 ground-to-air missile systems. The $800-million contract to deliver S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran was cancelled in 2010 by then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, falling in line with the UN sanctions imposed on Iran due to its disputed nuclear program. In turn, Tehran filed a currently pending $4-billion lawsuit against Russia in Geneva 's arbitration court. However, Russia President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to lift the ban over delivering a long-overdue missile system S-300 to Iran on April 13.
Edited by CN