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Question: What can you tell us about the US’s intention to initiate a resumption of the previously cancelled sanctions against Iran at the UN Security Council?

Maria Zakharova: Russia has repeatedly stated its position on this issue, publicly as well. We have spoken about this many times. The US initiatives on restoring UN Security Council sanction resolutions regarding Iran were cancelled in 2015, after the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on settling Iran’s nuclear programme. The US’s initiatives on this are groundless and doomed to fail.

Let me recall that the US has no right to use the prestige and authority of the UN Security Council in its egoistic, Iran-hating interests.

The US is crudely violating UN Security Council Resolution 2231 from May 2018 when Washington unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA, restored sanctions against Iran and began to exert pressure on other countries to ban them from implementing their commitments stemming from UN Security Council resolutions. Such actions are absolutely illegal.

Russia condemns US efforts to continue destroying the JCPOA and undermining UN Security Council Resolution 2231. We are seriously concerned that Washington’s reckless actions might trigger a deep crisis in the UN Security Council, but regrettably, it seems that our American colleagues could not care less about this today.

We are confident that US attempts to reimpose the UN Security Council’s cancelled sanctions against Iran will fail. This happened recently with the US draft resolution on introducing an indefinite weapons embargo against Tehran. Instead of learning from this failure, the US is planning a new aggravation. We urge all countries to resolutely rebuff these attempts. Let me emphasise again that the US’s plans in this area are unlawful.