Iran is claiming that President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily restricting travel from Iran and five other countries violates part of the nuclear deal brokered by former President Barack Obama in 2015.
According to the Associated Press (AP), Hossein Naghavi Hosseini, a spokesman for the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said the Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate part of President Trump’s temporary visa ban is “a new restriction in the post-nuclear-deal era that is considered an obvious breach of the [nuclear] deal.”
Hosseini reportedly claimed that the nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) prohibits signatory countries from imposing new restrictions or sanctions on Iranians. However, the AP noted that “he did not explain how that is connected or relevant to the travel ban.”
Trump’s temporary 90-day visa restriction lists Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen – six countries “identified as presenting heightened terrorism risks,” according to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).
One of the main goals of the temporary travel restriction is to promote information sharing between the nations listed and the United States to prevent any future terrorist attacks and to better safeguard the national security of residents in the U.S.
On Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Mohammad Javad Zarif called Trump’s ban “misplaced and misguided,” suggested it had “no basis in facts,” and said “it would not help in fighting terrorism. In fact, it would be the greatest gift to extremist groups who would use it as a rallying cry to attract new followers”:
A bigoted ban on Muslims will not keep US safer. Instead of policies empowering extremists, US should join the real fight against them.
— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) June 27, 2017
The State Department lists the Iranian government as the world’s foremost state-sponsors of terrorism. It supports groups like Hezbollah and Iraqi Shiite terrorist organizations, including Kata’ib Hezballah, in addition to exporting its version of a Shiite caliphate throughout the Middle East and Central America.
Following the executive order signed this year, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC)’s policy director suggested Trump’s temporary visa ban was a “white nationalist effort to change the trajectory of immigration” in the United States. The NIAC is an advocacy group that supported the nuclear deal and has been accused of being too sympathetic to the Iranian regime. Despite its attempts to paint itself as such, NIAC does not represent the Iranian-American population.
Although investigations have tied Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to major terrorist activity in the past, they were not listed on Trump’s executive order. During his visit with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman last month, President Trump signed a $350 billion arms deal with the kingdom to take place during the next ten years. Saudi Arabia and the United States have increased their intelligence sharing over the past few years, and Saudi Arabia has been working with Israel against the Iranian regime and Hezbollah.
According to the Supreme Court, in its statement on the matter, Trump’s executive order “may not be enforced against foreign nationals who have a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.” For example, SCOTUS states that individuals who qualify for this include people who have “a close familial relationship” and cites an example as “[a] foreign national who wishes to enter the United States to live with or visit a family member, like [John] Doe’s wife” or “Dr. Ismail Elshikh, an American citizen and imam whose Syrian mother-in-law is seeking entry” into the United States. However, SCOTUS states that “the relationship must be formal, documented, and formed in the ordinary course, rather than for the purpose of evading” Trump’s executive order.
According to the Associated Press, “A State Department spokeswoman says refugees who have been vetted, approved for a move to the U.S., and scheduled to fly to the U.S. through July 6 will be allowed in.” The ban will reportedly take effect once again on Thursday morning.
Adelle Nazarian is a politics and national security reporter for Breitbart News. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
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