VIENNA, June 26. /TASS/. Washington’s pressures on Tehran jeopardize control of Iran’s nuclear program envisaged by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Russia’s permanent representative at international organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov told TASS in an interview on Wednesday.
"Possibly unaware of what they are doing the Americans jeopardize verification procedures, which are the most important component of the JCPOA. If the JCPOA is shaken loose or ceases to exist altogether, it is very unlikely the current intrusive methods of verifying Iran’s nuclear activity will be preserved in full. And this hardly meets the interests of the international community and the United States. Something makes the Americans think, though, that this will not happen," he said.
The situation involving the nuclear deal looks worrisome and in the current context it is hard to predict its further development. "With their jaw-cracking sanctions the Americans have brought about a pre-crisis state of affairs, if not a full-scale crisis. In this connection the Iranians cannot but ask what incentives there exist for them to comply with their voluntary obligations in a situation where the balance of the nuclear deal has been fundamentally upset," Ulyanov said.
He explained that while approving the JCPOA the Iranian parliament made a reservation the additional protocol to the safeguards agreement with the IAEA will be terminated, should any party to the JCPOA default on its liabilities.
"For the time being Tehran does not refuse to comply with it, but it is utterly irresponsible to experiment in this field and test Iran’s endurance," Ulyanov said.
On May 8, 2018 US President Donald Trump declared Washington was pulling out from the JCPOA, concluded in 2015 with the aim to restrict Tehran’s nuclear research in exchange for the lifting of UN Security Council sanctions and unilateral US and EU restrictions. On May 8, 2019 Iranian President Hassan Rouhani declared that Tehran was suspending part of its obligations under the nuclear deal and gave the other signatories two months to resume compliance. Iran said the participants in the deal, European in the first place, had defaulted on some of their obligations contained in economic section of the agreement, so for that reason the deal made no sense in its current shape.