Iran’s president blames ‘Zionist groups’ for US ruling that he says violates nuclear deal

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani blamed “Zionist pressure groups” for a U.S. Supreme Court ruling he said could undermine the Iran nuclear deal.

“The lack of compliance of the United States with the JCPOA in the last several months represents a flawed approach,” Rouhani said Thursday, addressing the annual opening of the U.N. General Assembly, using the acronym for the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action, the formal name for the deal that traded sanctions relief for a rollback of nuclear development in Iran.

“The latest case in point is the United States Supreme Court ruling to seize billions of dollars of the Iranian regime’s assets,” he said. “This demonstrated that the Zionist pressure groups could go as far as having the U.S. Congress pass offensive legislation forcing the highest judicial institution to uphold peremptory violations of international law.”

In April, the high court upheld a 2012 law that allows U.S. victims of Iran-backed terrorism to claim funds from the $2 billion in Bank Markazi’s assets held in the United States. Bank Markazi is Iran’s central bank.

Litigants include families of Marines killed in the 1983 Hezbollah attack on barracks in Beirut, and the Rubin family, whose family member was injured in a 1997 double suicide bombing on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem. The family is represented by the Israeli NGO Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center.

Rouhani said such rulings should be seen as a “wrongful international act” in violation of the deal.

The deal does not include the unfreezing of U.S.-held assets, although the Obama administration, in what was seen as a good-will gesture, unfroze $400 million in separate Iranian assets and delivered the money to Iran.

The Anti-Defamation League slammed what it said was Rouhani’s anti-Semitic language.

“President Rouhani’s U.N. address demonstrates clearly that there is no evidence of Iranian moderation,” Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL’s CEO, said in a statement. “His espousing of noxious anti-Semitic conspiracy theories alleging ‘Zionist’ control of Congress must be condemned by the international community.”

Rouhani was otherwise bullish on the deal, saying Iran’s economy had improved – an implicit rebuke to hard-liners in his country who said the deal was not worth it.

He otherwise referred to Israel only once, unlike predecessors such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who made hostility to Israel a centerpiece of their speeches. Rouhani was more focused on Islamic State terrorists, blaming Saudi Arabia for creating the environment in which they flourished.

“The oppressed Palestinians are still afflicted by a web of apartheid and oppressive polices set by the Zionist regime,” he said in his only reference to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.