Iran Nuclear Deal Wins Tepid Endorsement From Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
By THOMAS ERDBRINKOCT. 21, 2015
TEHRAN — Iran’s supreme leader on Wednesday publicly endorsed for the first time the July nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers, state news agencies reported. But the provisional endorsement was accompanied by a warning that Tehran expected all sanctions to be lifted or it would walk away from the deal.
The support of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is the final step in an approval process involving the Supreme National Security Council, the Iranian Parliament and the Guardian Council. Iran can now begin putting in place the measures outlined in the agreement, including dismantling thousands of centrifuges used for enrichment and downsizing a heavy water plant so that it can no longer produce plutonium.
The endorsement was included in a letter addressed to President Hassan Rouhani that included accusations against the United States, Iran’s longtime enemy, and that pointed out several flaws in the deal, state television reported.
Calling for close supervision of the application of the agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Ayatollah Khamenei said the deal “suffers from several ambiguities, and structural weaknesses.” He added that without close oversight, the deal would lead to “great damage, to the present and future,” for Iran.
The supreme leader also said that Iran was seeking additional guarantees that international economic sanctions would be lifted. He demanded that President Obama and the European Union guarantee in writing that “the cruel economic and financial sanctions” against Iran be completely lifted once Tehran has met its side of the bargain.
“In the statements of the E.U. and American president, it must be clearly mentioned that these sanctions are completely canceled,” Ayatollah Khamenei wrote. If the sanctions stay, the deal will be void, he added.
Ayatollah Khamenei has issued a string of warnings against the United States in recent months, telling Mr. Rouhani that Washington could not be trusted.
Mr. Rouhani has hinted on several occasions at a new start in relations between the two nations, but Ayatollah Khamenei said that is unlikely.
On Wednesday, the supreme leader said that he had received two letters from Mr. Obama saying that the United States did not wish to overturn Iran’s political system, which is led by Shiite Muslim clerics.
But Ayatollah Khamenei said that the promise had not been kept, and that Mr. Obama should be taken to an international court for his support of “seditionists,” “financing the opponents of the Islamic Republic” and “straightforward military threats.”
Observers have pointed out that Ayatollah Khamenei’s comments against the United States have grown increasingly forceful as the nuclear deal edged closer to becoming a reality.
Ayatollah Khamenei appeared to be trying to make clear on Wednesday that despite the landmark agreement, Iran would continue to view the United States as the “Great Satan,” possibly to appease hard-liners, some of whom wept openly after Parliament voted to endorse the deal.
While the agreement stipulates that sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear work are to be lifted, older measures are to remain in place. A central issue is that the United States will continue to regard Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism because of its support for the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah. That could potentially restrict payments between Iran and Europe, since many financial transactions pass through New York.
Ayatollah Khamenei warned that any “repetitive and self-made pretexts” of new sanctions, over human rights and terrorism charges, for instance, must be answered by the Iranian government canceling the nuclear agreement.
The United States “stepped into the field of negotiations not with an intention of finding a fair solution, but rather to fulfill its hostile purposes against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Ayatollah Khamenei wrote. “How the Americans acted and behaved during the course of the nuclear issue and the long, boring negotiations proves that it was also another ring in their deception chain against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
