US accuses Iran of bad faith over sanctions lawsuit

The United States is accusing Iran of bad faith for challenging Washington’s renewed nuclear-linked sanctions against it at the UN’s top court.

Iran has asked the International Court of Justice to order the United States to lift the sanctions, reimposed after US President Donald Trump pulled out of a multilateral 2015 accord. It brought the case at the court in The Hague under a 1955 friendship treaty that predates the country’s Islamic Revolution.

Washington tells the court it has no jurisdiction to rule on the case, which it says is 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 says in her closing argument. “Iran cannot be permitted to draw this court into a political and psychological campaign” against the United States, she adds.

— AFP