TEHERAN, July 12. /TASS/. Withdrawal from the nuclear deal will bring no good to Iran, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, who is currently on a visit to Teheran, told TASS on Tuesday.
"I don’t think withdrawal from the deal can do any good to Iran. I would be an understandable and explainable reaction but it would be a less responsible reaction than the policy the current Iranian leadership is pursuing now," he said. "I understand the worries of our Iranian colleagues that the situation with the abandonment of the sanctions is not very good. Moreover, the United States’ new administration has thrice expanded its sanction lists adding more Iranian companies and individuals, as well as companies from third countries which are cooperating with the Iranian side quite legally."
"We think that such actions [of the United States] run counter to the provisions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA, commonly known as the Iranian nuclear deal]. We have been saying this and will continue to say this, including next week when the joint commission of the six powers [international mediators on the settlement of the Iranian nuclear problem] and Iran will gather for its regular meeting in Vienna. We understand that this situation not merely causes concern, it actually puts Iran before a choice. Nevertheless, we call on the Iranian side to demonstrate responsibility and not to step off the chosen path," Ryabkov stressed.
"The JCPOA is working and is yielding results," he noted. "In the absence of the JCPOA, the situation could have been worse, much worse. But we must work towards a positive result and we will press the US administration for that. I hope our joint efforts with Iran will be supported by Chinese colleagues. I hope European countries are interested in building normal, long-term, stable relations with Iran and will also take a more balanced position that the destructive forces in the US Congress."
"We see that US’s demands to Iran has become tougher in the recent time," Ryabkov went on to say. "But any agreement this or that way has certain gaps making it possible for each of the signatories to interpret it its own way. This must not be done with a goal of making the life of the other party more difficult. Otherwise, it may tilt the agreement and in the long run it may be called to question."
"There are compromise-based ways to resolve technical problems that are on the JCPOA agenda. These are rather delicate matters that are to be discussed by diplomats and experts behind closed doors. But the point is not in the essence of these issues but in the approach - either you have a political will to settle them and remove them from the agenda or one and the same matter will be discussed over and over again whipping up artificial tension. We are against it and would like to warn our American colleagues against doing it," the Russian diplomat stressed.