TEHRAN – Tehran has dismissed the recent remarks made by French President Emmanuel Macron and his American counterpart Donald Trump, saying such remarks are of no help in saving the Iran nuclear deal.

In a statement on Friday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Trump’s “contradictory” and “groundless” claims do not deserve a new reaction.

In their meeting in France on Thursday, Trump and Macron called for efforts to keep Tehran from what they called getting nuclear weapons.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry says “raising issues beyond the JCPOA” will “pave the way for further distrust among the parties remaining in the 2015 agreement.”“I don’t think we have differences over Iran… I don’t think that the president wants to see nuclear weapons and neither do I,” Trump told reporters ahead of a meeting with Macron in Caen.

Macron also said Paris and Washington shared the same objective on Iran, saying they sought to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, reduce Iran’s ballistic activity, contain Iran's regional activity and establish peace in the region.

“All the other debates are about technicalities,” the French leader said, calling for fresh talks to extend the terms of the JCPOA and to achieve those goals.

Responding to Macron’s comments, Mousavi said, “Despite some remarks and political statements, the European parties have failed so far to fulfil their commitments under the JCPOA and their obligations following the U.S. illegal withdrawal from the agreement.”

The Europeans, he added, have failed to prepare the grounds for Iran to fully benefit from the multilateral agreement.

“Under the current circumstances, their move to raise issues beyond the JCPOA will not only fail to help save the JCPOA, but will also pave the way for further distrust among the parties remaining in the 2015 agreement,” the spokesman said, according to the Foreign Ministry website.

He further said that such moves will steer the U.S. closer to the goal it pursued when leaving the Iran nuclear deal, which was nothing but the deal’s collapse.

On May 8, 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, reached between Iran and six world powers – the U.S., the UK, France, Russia, China and Germany.

MH/PA