MOSCOW, July 15. /TASS/. Tehran expects that the European counties - signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA, known as the Iran nuclear deal) - will take operational steps to stay committed to the deal, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi said on Monday, cited by the foreign ministry’s press service.
"Iran expects all the European signatories to the deal to adopt measures and to start taking operational and effective steps to meet their commitments [under the JCPoA]," Mousavi said in response to statements voiced by European politicians at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry’s spokesman stressed that "Iran’s government was closely following the statements by European countries - signatories to the JCPoA, while Tehran’s steps will be as proportional as those of the remaining parties to the agreement in the implementation of the deal," he said.
"This way [the fulfillment of the Iran nuclear deal - TASS] should not be viewed as a one-way road," he added.
On Monday, EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini said in Brussels that the European Union would do its utmost so that Iran could go back to full compliance with the nuclear deal. In the meantime, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that the Iran nuclear deal might be preserved but "there is some closing but small window to keep the deal alive."
Tensions over Iran’s nuclear program exacerbated after Washington unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA on May 8, 2018 and slapped US economic sanctions on Iran’s oil exports. A year later, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced that Tehran was scaling back some of its commitments under the JCPOA. He also set a 60-day deadline to the remaining parties to the deal so that they could resume their commitments under the deal. In 2015, Iran and six international mediators (five permanent UN members - Russia, the United Kingdom, China, the United States, France - and Germany) clinched a deal known as the Iran nuclear deal or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Under the deal, Iran undertook to curb its nuclear activities and place them under total control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in exchange of abandonment of the sanctions imposed previously by the United Nations Security Council, the European Union and the United States over its nuclear program.
Iran pledged not to enrich uranium above a concentration of 3.67% for 15 years and not to stockpile more than 300 kg of low-enriched uranium, as well as not to build new heavy-water reactors, not to accumulate heavy water and not to develop nuclear explosive devices.
On July 8, Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said that Tehran started enriching uranium above the concentration of 3.67%, which is more than permitted by the JCPoA. According to Tehran, the remaining parties to the deal, mostly European counties, have not stayed fully committed to the economic provisions of the deal. Therefore, the deal is senseless in its current form.