Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called on Iran to exercise restraint and urged the UK, France and Germany to meet their obligations under the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.

Speaking at a BRICS foreign ministers meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Lavrov said the U.S. steps against Iran has led to a harsh escalation in the Persian Gulf region, according to Anadolu news agency.

If the U.S. manages to break the Iran nuclear deal, it will strike a severe blow at the regime of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, he added.

France, Germany, and the UK, the three European parties to the JCPOA, issued a statement on July 14 reiterating their support for the deal.

Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani has said Europe’s support for the nuclear deal remains just on the paper.

According to the JCPOA, which put limits on Iran’s nuclear activities, economic and financial sanctions against Iran must be terminated.

On May 8, exactly one year after the U.S. withdrew from the multi-nation nuclear agreement and reimposed sanctions on Iran, Tehran announced a partial withdrawal from some aspects of the pact, saying that the country would no longer adhere to some of the limits on its nuclear activities. It also threatened to step up uranium enrichment if an agreement is not made within 60 days to protect it from the sanctions’ effects. 

In follow-up to that deadline, on July 7 Iran announced that it has started enriching uranium to a higher purity than the 3.67% as the Europeans missed the 60-day deadline to devise a concrete mechanism to protect the country from the U.S. sanctions.

Iran says a reduction in its nuclear commitments is based on Paragraph 36 of the JCPOA.

(Paragraph 36 provided a mechanism to resolve disputes and allows one side, under certain circumstances, to stop complying with the deal if the other side is out of compliance.)

On July 16, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, “As stated by our foreign minister, who works hard, Europe has had eleven commitments, none of which it has met. The foreign minister, despite his diplomatic considerations, is clearly stating that. But what did we do? We acted based on our commitments, and even beyond that.”

Ayatollah Khamenei reiterated that Iran continued to stay committed to the JCPOA despite the fact that the Europeans violated the international agreement and yet demanded Iran to keep its promises.

“Now that we have started to reduce our commitments, they step forward. They are very insolent, and they have not abided by their eleven commitments. We have just started to reduce some of our commitments, and this process will surely continue,” the Leader asserted.

NA/PA