Challenge to US sanctions ‘in bad faith’

– The US accused Iran of bad faith for challenging its renewed nuclear-linked sanctions against it at the UN’s top court.

Iran has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order the US to lift the sanctions, reimposed after US President Donald Trump pulled out of a multilateral 2015 accord.

Iran brought the case at the court in The Hague under a 1955 friendship treaty that predates the country’s Islamic Revolution.

Washington told the court it had

The Hague

no jurisdiction to rule on the case, which it said was a matter of national security.

“Iran is not invoking the treaty of amity in good faith in this proceeding,” US State Department lawyer Jennifer Newstead said.

“Iran cannot be permitted to draw this court into a political and psychological campaign” against the United States, she added.

During four days of hearings, Iran said the sanctions reintroduced this month are causing economic suffering for its citizens.

The US lawyers retorted that economic mismanagement was at the root of Iran’s woes.

A second wave of US measures is due to hit Iran in early November, targeting its vital oil exports.

Closing the hearings, ICJ president Abdulqawi Yusuf said the court would issue a ruling “as soon as possible” but did not set a date.

Despite their 1955 treaty, Iran and the US have not had diplomatic ties since 1980. The ICJ was set up in 1946 to rule in disputes between countries. –