Iran: Hostile US sanctions vote undermines N-deal

Bloomberg

Iran promised to respond if the “blatantly hostile” vote in the House of Representatives to impose new sanctions becomes law, saying they would go against US commitments under the 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers.
Sanctions pursued in the US Congress “can impact the successful implementation” of the deal, the state-run Iranian Students’ News Agency cited Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as saying on Wednesday. President Hassan Rouhani also told his cabinet the government would “take any other action needed to preserve and strengthen the interest of the nation,” according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
The House of Representatives passed a measure on Tuesday that would strengthen sanctions on Russia and impose new ones on Iran and North Korea, though the White House has sent mixed signals over whether President Donald Trump would sign it. The bill next goes to the Senate. Trump lambasted the Iran deal during the presidential campaign and vowed to dismantle or renegotiate it if elected. On Tuesday, he called it the “single worst deal” he’d seen, renewing concerns that he may seek to end it. The US action goes against its commitments to carry out the execution of the nuclear accord “with good intentions and in a constructive climate” and may ultimately “lessen benefits Iran was to derive” from the deal, said Araghchi, who was a member of Iran’s negotiating team. Iran will “certainly respond,” he said without elaborating.
Trump supports sanctions against the three countries but wants to make sure the US gets “good deals,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday.
Iran’s parliament has said it will start discussing a bill that would increase funding for the country’s missile program and the Revolutionary Guards, which has been a target of earlier sanctions.