Preservation of JCPOA contingent on Europe’s independent approach

TEHRAN (Defapress)-However, whether Iran would stay in the deal or not, largely depends on and has a direct relationship with the content of the Europe’s package of proposals to save the multilateral nuclear agreement, signed in July 2015 between Tehran and P5+1. The package is going to be presented soon by Brussels leaders.

Iran and the remaining five signatories to the JCPOA are of the same opinion that the deal is required to be preserved as a countermeasure in the face of Washington’s excessive demands. Nevertheless, the continuation of the implementation of Iran nuclear deal heavily depends on the ability of the Western parties to safeguard Iran’s interests within the framework of the JCPOA and guarantee that the agreement will benefit Iran. But the question is whether they are willing to satisfy Iran and, more importantly, capable of doing so. What follows is a brief account and analysis of the latest and most important developments within the past few days concerning the JCPOA.

Continuation of nuclear diplomacy

While the US is currently seeking to reinstate its unilateral sanctions against Iran and, even, impose new ones, Iranian diplomats are using diplomacy to foil plots hatched by the White House. To this end, in his recent visit to Moscow, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met and consulted with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on important international issues, including the JCPOA. He described the situation of the JCPOA as abnormal, blaming US pullout from the Iran nuclear deal and its re-imposition of the sanctions for the present imbalance.

Commenting on the final decision of the Islamic Republic of Iran about the JCPOA, Araqchi said Tehran is waiting to assess other parties’ ability to safeguard its interests within the framework of the deal in the absence of the US.
He said Iran’s ultimate decision on the deal – whether to stay in or pull out from it – is dependent on the final conclusion it will arrive at after reviewing and analyzing the outcomes of its talks and consultations with China, Russia as well as European states. Speaking to Euronews, the Iranian deputy minister described complete implementation of the JCPOA as the most important issue concerning the deal. He added figuring out ways in cooperation with the allies to bypass US sanctions is a marginal issue. Araqchi listed Iran’s main preconditions for remaining committed to the deal as European companies’ continued presence and constant activities in its market, its unimpeded oil exports, the country’s ability to easily send and receive money and its banks’ unrestricted relationship and interactions with their foreign counterparts.

Europe’s insufficient measures

Iran maintains that despite Europeans’ efforts to preserve the JCPOA, they have, so far, failed to provide the Middle Eastern state with sufficiently firm guarantees that they would be able to safeguard Tehran’s interests within the framework of the deal.

Last week, in his meeting with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg in Oslo, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Ali Akbar Salehi, criticized Europe’s attempts to counter Washington’s hostile policies toward Tehran as inadequate and called for more serious moves and measures by the leaders of the European Union to save the deal.

Salehi, who had traveled to Norway to attend the annual Oslo Forum, sat down in separate meetings with Norwegian Solberg as well as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to discuss the latest developments regarding the Iran nuclear deal following the US withdrawal.

In his meeting with Solberg, the Norwegian prime minister described the JCPOA as an important achievement for the world and emphasized that her country is serious about salvaging the agreement. Norway, she added, seeks the removal of the existing obstacles to cooperation with Iran.

Iranian FM’s response

Last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif enumerated Tehran’s most important requests from Washington, in addition to responding to a 12-point list of steep demands recently put forward by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a “new” deal with Iran after his country’s withdrawal from the JCPOA. Among the demands put forward by Zarif were that the US is required to respect Iran’s independence and national sovereignty, guarantee that it will honor its commitments under 1975 Algiers Agreement and abandon its policy of resorting to the threat or use of force against the Islamic Republic as well as other countries.

In addition, he added, the US government should respect the State immunity of the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is a fundamental principle of international law, and, while rescinding previous arbitrary and unlawful financial judgments, it should refrain from executing them in the US and extraterritorially.

The Iranian foreign minister said the US government should openly acknowledge its unwarranted and unlawful actions against the people of Iran over the past decades, take remedial measures to compensate the people of Iran for the damages incurred, and provide verifiable assurances that it will cease and desist from such illegal measures and refrain from ever repeating them.

The US unlawful and unwarranted actions against Iranians include its role in the 1953 coup that led to the overthrow of Iran’s lawful and democratically-elected government and the subsequent 25 years of dictatorship in Iran, unlawful blocking, seizure and confiscation of tens of billions of dollars of assets of the Iranian people after the victory of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution or under various baseless pretexts recently, direct military aggression against Iran in April 1980 that was a blatant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iran and provision of massive military and intelligence assistance to the Iraqi dictator during the eight-year war he imposed on the Iranian people inflicting hundreds of billions of dollars of damages on Iran and its people, Zarif said.

US plot

Speaking at a conference on Tuesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the US has developed three scenarios to doom the JCPOA to failure. He added, after failing to enact the first three scenarios, Washington decided to play out the last one which was withdrawing from the deal.

Rouhani said Trump pulled out of the JCPOA which was the costliest and worst option.

JCPOA importance to Europe

To Europe, the stabilizing aspects and impacts of the JCPOA are more important than the deal’s economic benefits.
In line with this, last week, the head of Iran’s Foreign Policy Strategic Council Kamal Kharrazi met with Italian Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi to discuss solutions to preserve the JCPOA and expansion of bilateral relations.

Milanesi voiced the EU’s all-out support for the Iran nuclear deal, describing the JCPOA as an important document for non-proliferation of nuclear weapons which can guarantee peace and security at the regional and international level.
In addition, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has stressed the importance of the JCPOA for ensuring security.

Main focus of international discussions

Despite US efforts to turn the world against the JCPOA, the importance of preserving the deal is still stressed by major international players.

Within the past few days, many of the world’s top officials including Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, Spokesperson of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs Raveesh Kumar and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have all underlined the importance of the JCPOA.

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