Iranian Officials React to US Visa Law

About two weeks after the approval of a law restricting the entry of citizens from 38 countries to the United States, Iranian officials on Monday once again protested this legislation, calling it anti-Iranian. Ali Shamkhani, representative of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic and Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, during a meeting with Ammar al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq, referred to the new US visa law and described this action as "contrary to good faith in the JCPOA," stating that such actions exacerbate distrust. Sadegh Amoli Larijani, head of the judiciary, said on Monday in a meeting of senior judicial officials: "What is obligatory for all of us is vigilance, especially the country's diplomatic apparatus must pay attention and monitor the behavior of the Americans, especially the 5+1. In any case, the JCPOA is not something that should only be observed from one side. The series of actions taken by the Americans seems to be a series of hostile actions that were not expected... such behavior is, in fact." Ali Larijani, head of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, responded to a member of parliament on Monday, calling this US policy a sign of passivity: "The decisions that the US Congress is making overall, I think they have become passive in terms of diplomatic behavior and because of this passivity, they have come up with a phenomenon of a surge of childish decisions to get out of passivity." According to the news network, Hossein Jaberi Ansari, spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, also said on Monday regarding the JCPOA that no positive strategic change has been seen in relations between Iran and the United States: "The strategic space between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States has not undergone fundamental and basic changes. Our fundamental point before, during, and after the JCPOA is that repeating the paths taken will lead to a dead end." Iranian officials over the past two weeks have described the US Congress's decision to impose visa restrictions on citizens from 38 countries who have traveled to Iran, Syria, Sudan, and Iraq in the past five years as contrary to the JCPOA. Alireza Namvar Haghighi, a university professor in Canada, confirmed this issue to Radio Farda, saying: "What the US did indirectly contradicts Article 29 of the JCPOA, which essentially commits individuals not to take any actions that would affect the JCPOA, and this new sanction affects the benefits of the lifting of sanctions, especially for European countries that want to travel to Iran. Although Mr. John Kerry has said that we want to eliminate this, this new type of sanction places a red line on Iran that will cautiously introduce economic sectors from European countries into the Iranian market." Majid Mohammadi, a researcher and sociologist in New York, however, does not consider the US Congress's decision to be a violation of the nuclear agreement and the JCPOA: "This decision is not fundamentally a violation of the JCPOA because the goal of the JCPOA was to lift sanctions that had been imposed against the Iranian government or against some officials of the Islamic Republic. On the other hand, the guarantees that Mr. Kerry has given can be relied upon because where the legitimate interests of the Islamic Republic are concerned, such as economic exchanges, it is clear that such restrictions will have no effect." Jalil Roshandel, a researcher and university professor in the US, told Radio Farda that Iran does not have the capacity to retaliate against the US: "There is no action that Iran can take similar to the US. Iran cannot, so to speak, issue visas for Americans under other conditions. On the contrary, it can issue visas on separate sheets that are not stamped on passports, and as a result, Europeans who travel to Iran will not reflect that they have traveled to Iran on their passports. Of course, cooperation in this matter depends heavily on the issue of information and how much Europeans want to cooperate with Americans is also a factor in the matter." Iranian officials also insist that the US pays the alleged damages and compensations against Iran from the blocked Iranian assets. Meanwhile, Americans have stated that the payment of these compensations will not come from the blocked Iranian assets but from the fines paid by banks and international institutions for violating sanctions. Legislative bodies in the US approved new restrictions for citizens of 38 countries who have traveled to Syria, Iraq, or the countries of Iran and Sudan, which the US State Department considers supporters of terrorism, in the 5 years prior, by passing Chapter 203 of the upcoming US budget, which became law upon being signed by Barack Obama.