RNA – In his Friday prayer sermon to a large and fervent crowd of believers in Qom’s Quds Prayer Hall, Ayatollah Seyyed Hashem Hoseyni-Bushehri said, “The United States has announced that they will decide whether to leave the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or not in the coming weeks.”
The member of the Supreme Council of the Seminary added, “The United States is trying to bully Iran while they have never tried to strengthen the nuclear deal with Iran but instead, they have always acted against the agreement.”
“The Europeans have admited that they want to remain loyal to the agreement, yet leaving the JCPOA is in their agenda. They want to put pressure on Iran and impose new conditions. They seek to undermine Iran’s military and regional power but they must be aware that if they decide to pull out of the JCPOA, Iran will leave the JCPOA and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) all together,” he added.
The President of the United States, Donald Trump, is a stern critic of the nuclear deal reached between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — the United States, France, the United Kingdom, China, Russia – plus Germany. Under the agreement, nuclear-related sanctions put in place against Iran were lifted in exchange for curbs on Tehran's nuclear program.
He has repeatedly described the JCPOA, which was negotiated under his predecessor, Barack Obama, as “the worst and most one-sided transaction Washington has ever entered into” and threatened to tear it up.
In January, the United States president decided to stick with the JCPOA, but gave the European signatories a May 12 deadline to “fix the terrible flaws” of the accord or he would withdraw Washington from the deal.
‘Hosting Quran contest an opportunity for Iran’
In other remarks, Ayatollah Hoseyni-Bushehri said, “Our country is hosting an international Quran contest and we have participants from 84 countries across the globe. This is a great opportunity for Iran.”
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