Rishi Sunak, one of the candidates for UK PM states recent attack on Salman Rushdie on Friday (August 12), is a ‘wake-up call for the West’ over Iran, The Sunday Telegraph reported.
Following the stabbing of Rushdie, the former chancellor said that the UK should declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a ‘terrorist organisation.’
Rushdie, an Indian-born author, was stabbed in the neck and torso while giving a lecture in New York state. The author had spent years in hiding after Iran urged Muslims to kill him over his book “The Satanic Verses.”
Also read | ‘Satan on the way to hell’: Iranian hardline newspapers praise attack on Salman Rushdie
Sunak stated, referring to the nuclear deal between the West and Iran, “We urgently need a new, strengthened deal and much tougher sanctions, and if we can’t get results, then we have to start asking whether the JCPOA is at a dead end,” the Sunday Telegraph reported. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a 2015 agreement that allowed Iran to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for relief from US, European Union, and UN sanctions.
Rishi said, “The situation in Iran is extremely serious and in standing up to [Vladimir] Putin we can’t take our eye off the ball elsewhere,” The Sunday Telegraph reported.
Also read | Salman Rushdie on ventilator after surgery; may lose an eye, unable to speak
The UK is currently making efforts with the US and European Union to revive the agreement.
In 2018, the former president, Donald Trump, withdrew the US from the agreement, which Biden, the current president, is working to revive. Joe Biden claims it to be a way of stopping Iran from developing nuclear bombs.
(With inputs from agencies)
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