TEHRAN – France’s permanent mission in Vienna has reaffirmed Paris’ support for the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the JCPOA.

“France reaffirms its support for JCPOA and the work of the Agency [the International Atomic Energy Agency] and its inspectors, whose verification and inspection mission in Iran is essential. It calls on Iran to return to the implementation of the agreement, and to cooperate fully with the @iaeaorg,” it said in a tweet in French language.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has said that the cooperation of Iran as an inspected state has not been interrupted.

“We are there, our inspectors are there. They are carrying out their activities, which is very important. At the same time, what our inspectors have been verifying is the diminishing degree of compliance of the agreement in 2015,” he told Euronews in an interview published in February.

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

The U.S. move was in violation of the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that endorsed the JCPOA.

Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to put limits on its nuclear activities in exchange for the termination of economic and financial sanctions.

In May 2019, exactly one year after the U.S. unilaterally quit the deal and imposed sanctions on Iran, Tehran began to gradually reduce its commitments under the JCPOA to both retaliate for Washington’s departure and Europeans’ failure to honor their commitments.

On January 5, Iran took a fifth and last step in reducing its commitments and said it would no longer observe any operational limitations on its nuclear industry, whether concerning the capacity and level of uranium enrichment, the volume of stockpiled uranium or research and development. However, Iran has insisted if the Europeans honor their obligations it will immediately reverse its decisions.

Iran’s move is in line with paragraph 36 of the JCPOA.

President Hassan Rouhani said on May 6 that Iran will return to full implementation of the JCPOA if other signatories do the same.

Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, said in December 2019 that the signatories to the nuclear deal should adopt a united stance to preserve the deal.

Mojtaba Zolnour, the head of the Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, has said that the nuclear deal has just been implemented by Iran.

“The JCPOA has just been implemented by Iran and for the current time, nothing has remained from the JCPOA,” he told the Mehr news agency in an interview published on Sunday.

He noted that Iran is still under sanctions while it has fulfilled its obligations under the deal.

Parviz Esmaeili, the Iranians ambassador to Croatia, has urged the European Union to support the nuclear deal unitedly and practically.

“The European Union’s united voice in support for multilateralism and the JCPOA must turn into united determination and act,” he said via a videoconference on May 11 with the non-European ambassadors in Croatia.

The ambassador said that the EU has so far played a positive role in supporting the JCPOA politically, yet it is needed that political support is translated into action. 

“Only in this way, the European Union can be a support for international diplomacy, peace, and cooperation,” the diplomat pointed out.

NA/PA