Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, has said the articles of a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six other countries are highly technical and there is no possibility of renegotiating the agreement — even partially.

“No possibility of renegotiating parts of it, even partially; it is a key priority for us to keep its full implementation,” she said.

“The deal has been negotiated and finalized in a way that actually contains so many provisions and so many elements of control with the most intrusive of system of verification,” Mogherini said during a session of the Rome Mediterranean Dialogue regional forum on Friday.

“And this is 104 pages of detailed elements on every single aspect of nuclear activities. So anyone that thinks about renegotiating one chapter or another paragraph or line simply does not know what kind of box it is opening; every single word is linked to the previous and the next one and is something that was negotiated with an excellent technical team... [anyone thinking about renegotiation] simply does not understand the complexity of that,” she said,  according to a transcript of her remarks made available by the website of the European External Action Service.

Mogherini said the deal was international law because it had been embedded in a United Nations Security Council resolution and suggested that any country not observing the deal would in effect be violating international law.

“You cannot dismantle the deal. You can decide not to implement a UN Security Council resolution, and this is sovereign choice, but the deal is part of the UN system and is an international agreement,” she said.

Separately, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif praised the EU’s “solid” stance in supporting the deal.

“Europeans and Ms. Mogherini have so far adopted good and solid positions on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),” he said, referring to the accord by its official name.

SP/PA