France Reacts to Iran’s Decision to Suspend Some JCPOA Commitments

Florence Parly said nothing would be worse than Iran withdrawing from the deal and that France, Britain and Germany were doing all they could to keep the accord alive, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

He also warned that if Iran were to not keep to its commitments, then the question of triggering a mechanism that could lead to sanctions would be on the table.

The ambassadors of the countries remaining in the deal — France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China — on Wednesday received a letter penned by President Hassan Rouhani on the suspension of some of Iran's commitments under the accord, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The remarks by the French minister come as senior Iranian officials have in the past two days repeatedly stressed that the country is not leaving the JCPOA but stopping to implement “some of its commitments” to the deal.

Upon his arrival in the Russian capital Moscow late on Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said, “Unfortunately, the European Union and other members of the international community were not capable of standing up to the US’ pressures”.

Therefore, he added, Iran has decided to stop implementing some of the JCPOA commitments it used to fulfill voluntarily “for now”.

So Iran is not doing anything against JCPOA now; rather, it is acting totally within the framework of Articles 26 and 36 of the deal, Zarif added.

Message end/