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Putin, Rouhani focus on significance of Iran nuclear deal - Kremlin

The Russian and Iranian Presidents emphasized it was crucial to preserve that agreement, which is a meaningful factor in global security

MOSCOW, February 29. /TASS/. The Russian and Iranian Presidents, Vladimir Putin and Hassan Rouhani, discussed in a phone call the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known as the Iran nuclear deal, the Kremlin said on Saturday.

"[The presidents] focused on the situation around implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. [They] emphasized it was crucial to preserve that agreement, which is a meaningful factor in global security," the statement says.

The JCPOA, also known as the Iran nuclear deal, was signed between Iran, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (Russia, the United Kingdom, China, the United States and France) and Germany in 2015. 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.

The future of the deal was called in question after the United States’ unilateral pullout on May 8, 2018 and Washington’s unilateral oil export sanctions against Teheran. Iran argued that all other participants, Europeans in the first place, were ignoring some of their own obligations in the economic sphere, thus making the deal in its current shape senseless. Tehran began to gradually scale down its commitments under the deal. On January 5, 2020, Iran announced the final phase of scaling back the commitments related to limits on the number of centrifuges used to enrich uranium. On January 14, Germany, the United Kingdom and France said they had "been left with no choice, given Iran’s actions," but to trigger a dispute mechanism in the Iran nuclear deal.

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