Iranian, French Officials Hold 10-Hour Meeting in Paris

TEHRAN (defapress) – Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Seyed Abbas Araqchi, heading a delegation, attended a 10-hour meeting with French officials about President Emmanuel Macron’s recent proposal to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

News ID: 78586

Date: 03 September 2019 - 11:35

The meeting was held in Paris on Monday with a delegation of Iranian officials, including deputies of the governor of the Central bank of Iran (CBI) and the oil minister as well as the Iranian ambassador to the European country, in attendance.

The talks, which lasted more than 10 hours, focused on possible scenarios for furthering the initiative put forward by the French president on the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Ways to meet Iran's demands and interests under the JCPOA were the main topic of the meeting, and it was agreed that both sides would continue to work intensively on those scenarios, and increase their consultations with other parties concerned.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference in Tehran on Monday, Spokesman for the Iranian Administration Ali Rabiei referred to recent talks between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his French counterpart, and said, “In the past few weeks, there have been serious negotiations between the two presidents."

“Fortunately, the views have become closer together on many issues,” he said, adding, “Technical discussions on European commitments are now underway.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a recent interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that Tehran’s third step to reduce nuclear obligations would be taken on September 6 if Europe fails to meet Iran's demands to fulfill its JCPOA commitments.

Back in July, Iran declared the second step to reduce its commitments by ramping up the level of uranium enrichment to over 3.67 percent.

Iran maintains that the new measures are not designed to harm the nuclear deal, but to save the accord by creating a balance in the commitments.

Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, US, Britain, France, and Germany) on July 14, 2015, reached a conclusion over the text of the JCPOA.

The accord took effect in January 2016 and was supposed to terminate all nuclear-related sanctions against Iran all at once, but its implementation was hampered by the US policies and its eventual withdrawal from the deal.

On May 8, 2018, US President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the nuclear accord.

Following the US withdrawal, Iran and the remaining parties launched talks to save the deal.

However, the EU’s failure to ensure Iran’s economic interests forced Tehran to stop honoring certain commitments, including an unlimited rise in the stockpile of enriched uranium.

Spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Behrouz Kamalvandi recently said that the country’s enriched uranium stockpile has reached 360 to 370 kilograms.

Message end/