Iranian lawmaker points to regional insecurity if UN sanctions are reimposed

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DUBAI (Reuters) -Iran could withhold security commitments if European states invoke a U.N. mechanism to reimpose international sanctions on the Islamic Republic, a member of Iran’s parliamentary national security commission said on Monday, according to Borna news.

“We have many tools in our disposition. We can withhold our commitment to security in the region, Persian Gulf and Hormuz Strait as well as other maritime areas,” Abbas Moqtadaei said in reference to Tehran’s potential counter-measures to the reimposition of international sanctions.

He was speaking ahead of a meeting on Friday between Iranian deputy foreign ministers and British, French and German diplomats in Istanbul. 

 The three European states, known as E3, have said they would restore international sanctions on Iran by the end of August if the country did not enter productive talks on its nuclear programme with Western powers, notably the United States. 

E3 countries and Iran have in recent months held inconclusive talks on Tehran’s nuclear program, in parallel to indirect nuclear negotiations between Tehran and Washington. Israel’s attack on Iran in June led to the suspension of such talks. 

“Europe is not in a position to endanger itself in the… Hormuz Strait when it is itself in political, economic and cultural conflicts with Russia, China and even the United States,” Moqtadaei said in an interview with Iran’s semi-official Borna news agency. 

Last week, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson said Tehran would react to the three European states if they invoked the UN snapback mechanism, which expires on October 18. 

In a letter to the UN Secretary-General, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Sunday that the E3 lack the legal standing to invoke the mechanism, arguing that their stance on Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities last month made them no longer participants to a 2015 nuclear deal to which the snapback mechanism is linked. 

The three European countries, along with China and Russia, are the remaining parties to the nuclear pact – from which the U.S. withdrew in 2018 – that lifted sanctions on Iran in return for restrictions on its nuclear programme.

In the past, Iran has used the threat of disrupting maritime transit in the Strait of Hormuz or no longer stopping Europe-bound drug trafficking as a means to push back against Western pressures on its nuclear programme. 

(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)