A senior Iranian official slams a new set of sanctions approved by the US Senate against Tehran as a breach of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and the P5+1 states, vowing a proper response to the hostile move.

On Thursday, the US Senate voted overwhelmingly for a bill imposing sanctions on Iran over its missile program among other things.

To become law, the legislation would have to pass the Republican-led House of Representatives and be signed by President Donald Trump.

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Ali Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on international affairs, said the US Senate’s move is “unquestionably in breach of both the spirit and the letter of the JCPOA,” referring to the July 2015 deal officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Velayati said the Iranian committee tasked with monitoring the accord would certainly examine the congressional move and come up with a “decent” response.

Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to put limits on its nuclear activities in exchange for the removal of nuclear-related bans against the country.

Washington claims Iran’s missile tests are in breach of Resolution 2231, which was adopted in July 2015 to endorse the nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers, including the US.

However, Tehran has repeatedly asserted that its missiles are not capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Velayati further said by imposing more sanctions against Iran, the US is trying to “cover up the repeated defeats it has suffered from Iran in Iraq and Syria.”

So far, Washington has slapped two rounds of sanctions on Iran under the new US administration over the country’s missile work.

The Senate’s recent vote was “commended” by the pro-Tel Aviv American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which failed to sabotage the accord when it was in the making during the administration of the former US president Barack Obama.