TEHRAN - Helga Schmid, secretary general of the European External Action Service (EEAS), said on Tuesday that all sides have a collective responsibility to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the JCPOA.

“In Vienna to prepare first #JCPOA Joint Commission of 2020, to continue to oversee the implementation of the agreement. We have a collective responsibility to preserve the #IranDeal,” she tweeted.

The Joint Commission of the JCPOA was held in Vienna on Wednesday.

“A meeting of the Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will take place in Vienna on 26 February. The Joint Commission will be chaired on behalf of the EU High Representative Josep Borrell Fontelles by EEAS Secretary General Helga Maria Schmid and will be attended by representatives of China, France, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom and Iran,” the official website of the European Union said in a statement on Monday.

In a tweet on Monday, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to the Vienna-based international organizations said, “Ways and means to improve the situation within and around #JCPOA will be discussed.”

U.S. President Donald Trump quit the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, in May 2018 and introduced the harshest ever sanctions on Iran.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on February 16 that he will remain committed to keep the JCPOA alive.

“As coordinator I remain committed to listen to all sides and keep the #NuclearDeal alive,” he said in a tweet.

In May 2019 Iran started to reduce its commitments to the JCPOA at bi-monthly intervals in response to the abrogation of the pact by the U.S. coupled with the European Union’s inaction to shield Iran’s economy from sanctions.

Borrell has said that Europe must ensure Iran’s benefits from the nuclear deal if it wants the deal to survive.

“If we want the Iran nuclear deal to survive, we need to ensure that Iran benefits if it returns to full compliance,” he wrote in an article in the Project Syndicate published on February 8.

Borrell was notified in January by Paris, London, and Berlin that they had triggered the resolution dispute mechanism.

He has said that the EU will extend indefinitely the time limit to resolve disputes in the nuclear deal to avoid having to go to the UN Security Council or triggering new sanctions.

“There is an agreement that more time is needed due to the complexity of the issues involved. The timeline is therefore extended,” Borrell said in a statement on January 24.

NA/PA