TEHRAN – Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri on Tuesday urged Europe to put pressure on the United States to remove its anti-Iran “cruel sanctions” instead of holding futile meetings and mounting pressure on Tehran to salvage the 2015 nuclear agreement.

“Instead of holding meetings and putting pressure on Iran, the European countries had better pressure the U.S. into lifting the cruel sanctions against the Iranian nation,” said Jahangiri, speaking at a conference in Tehran.

He reminded the parties to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that the only way to save the multinational agreement is to honor their commitments, Tasnim reported.

The vice president also said after the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, Iran waited for one year before reducing its nuclear commitments.

“If we are not [able] to take advantage of the JCPOA, we will reduce our commitments,” Jahangiri warned.

He made it clear that Iran could easily reverse the decision to reduce its JCPOA commitments, provided that the sanctions are lifted.

On July 7, Iran declared the second step in reducing its JCPOA commitments by ramping up the level of uranium enrichment to beyond 3.67 percent.

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

Iran and six world powers (Russia, China, the U.S., Britain, France, and Germany) reached a conclusion over the text of the nuclear deal on July 14, 2015.

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

On May 8, 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the nuclear deal.

Following the U.S. withdrawal, Iran and the remaining parties to the JCPOA 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.

MH/PA