TEHRAN - Iran may reconsider its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) if the three European countries signatory to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) continue their unfair approach towards Tehran's rights, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani warned on Sunday.

“Iran is not much for threats, but we state frankly that if Europe, for any reason, adopts an unfair approach in using the Article 37 in the nuclear deal, we will then make a serious decision about our cooperation with the Agency, and the plan is ready at the Iranian Parliament,” Larijani said in Parliament.

Foreign ministers of France, Germany and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement on Tuesday announcing they have formally triggered the dispute mechanism in the nuclear deal.

“It is regrettable that a European foreign minister explicitly stated that the U.S. has threatened them to increase the auto tariffs by 25% (on Europeans) if they did not activate the trigger mechanism,” Larijani said.

He went on to say, “So the problem is not Iran’s behavior, as the Europeans themselves have repeatedly censured the U.S. for withdrawing from the JCPOA. Rather, the problem is the U.S. threats, that an economically powerful country is forcing Europe to adopt an unfair and humiliating approach.”

“We will not start this, but we act in accordance with the Europeans’ measures, therefore it is better for them to be fair and reasonable about this,” he added.

U.S. President Donald Trump quit the multilateral nuclear deal in May 2018 and introduced the harshest ever sanctions in history on Iran as part of his administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy against Iran.

The European countries failed to protect Iran’s benefits from the deal and after patiently watching for a whole year and seeing no clear action from the European signatories of the deal, Iran started to partially reduce its commitments.

Iran’s action is based on articles 26 and 36 of the JCPOA. Tehran has repeatedly announced it will reverse its decisions once other signatories fulfill their commitments.

Under the 2015 nuclear agreement endorsed by the UN Security Council resolution 2231, Iran agreed to put limits on its nuclear activities in exchange for the termination of economic and financial bans.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said activating the “trigger mechanism” will serve nobody’s interests.

“I have to mention that the three European nations have taken a passive measure from a weak position,” Abbas Mousavi said.

“Iran, as always, is prepared to deal with any constructive effort to save the important international agreement,” he said. However, Mousavi added, his country will take “firm, decisive and proportional response” to any “unconstructive” moves.

MJ/PA