TEHRAN – In a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday afternoon, President Hassan Rouhani criticized Europe for failing to honor their commitment to the nuclear deal and raising new issues in relation to the 2015 agreement, officially called the JCPOA.

Noting that moves to include new issues in the JCPOA is something “impossible”, Rouhani told Merkel, “The JCPOA is a document approved by the (UN) Security Council and is the product of long years of efforts by Iran and six great countries in the world, and it has a definite framework that is unchangeable.”

Rouhani also said if Europe is really seeking to preserve the JCPOA and realize its goals it must prove it in practice. The president added, “The only way to protect the JCPOA is cancellation of inhuman U.S. sanctions.”

For her part, Merkel said it is necessary to keep alive the JCPOA as an international agreement and called for resolving differences surrounding the nuclear agreement through dialogue.

She also called for strengthening cooperation between Iran and Germany and also among all countries to secure and stabilize the West Asia region.

Mahmoud Vaezi, the presidential chief of staff, has also said the 2015 nuclear deal is “valuable only if it meets the interests of our establishment.”

Vaezi also said Iran held long years of negotiations on the nuclear issue and it reached a “result and an agreement and we do not negotiate again about our agreement,” IRNA reported on Wednesday.

The German foreign minister has suggested including Iran’s missile program in the JCPOA. France has also proposed including regional countries such as Saudi Arabia and even Israel in possible talks on the nuclear deal.

Iran has insisted the nuclear deal is not renegotiable.

Germany, France, and Britain are three European members of the JCPOA. 

  
PA/PA