Daily ‘Dawn’ in its editorial comments on Saturday said as the US has begun to intensify its campaign to renew a UNSC arms embargo against Iran that is due to expire in October, the Islamic Republic has started to push back, indicating that there will be far-reaching consequences if the embargo is extended.
It said Iran’s unease at the move is understandable.
“Despite signing the landmark 2015 nuclear deal that was widely hailed as a triumph of multilateral diplomacy over belligerence, the fruits of this agreement have failed to materialize for Tehran,” said the newspaper.
The paper this is mainly because the US has browbeaten all foreign investors thinking of putting their money in the Islamic Republic.
“The American assassination of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in January sent alarm bells ringing across the world, as the international community braced for a destructive new Middle East war,” said Dawn.
The paper added it is also a fact that Iran has suffered greatly during the Covid-19 pandemic; Iranian officials say sanctions have impaired their efforts to secure medical supplies.
“At this time, extending the arms embargo would send the wrong message, and will add to tensions in an already traumatized world,” the editorial said.
Daily ‘Express Tribune’ in its editorial said Iranian President Hassan Rouhani upped the ante against the US, threatening a ‘crushing response’ if Washington goes ahead with its plans to extend the embargo on Iran’s trade of conventional arms.
It added the United Nations is supposed to lift the embargo later this year. The removal of the embargo was part of the Iran nuclear deal.
“Given that it was the US which violated the agreement by walking away in 2018, logic would dictate that Washington should be the one facing sanctions, not Iran. Unfortunately, as we have seen, Washington never faces sanctions for anything,” noted the paper.
It said under US President Donald Trump, we have only seen that disregard for international law, diplomacy, and norms of society get worse.
“Rouhani is widely regarded as being a pragmatic leader, but even he has a breaking point,” said the editorial.
It said the European signatories that allowed the deal-breaking US to go unpunished while compliant Iran was made to suffer from fresh sanctions. “Even the scale of Iran’s coronavirus problems would undeniably have been reduced if those unfair sanctions were not in place,” said the Express Tribune.
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