TEHRAN — MP Ali Motahari has criticized the European parties to the JCPOA, saying they are subordinate to the United States.

“The Europeans are subordinate to and are followers of the U.S. and their statements saying Iran is not implementing Barjam (JCPOA) is not important,” Motahari said, Mehr reported on Saturday.

The Europeans cannot act independently, he said.

He said instead of issuing statements, the Europeans should resolve their problems with the U.S. and coerce the U.S. into lifting its Iran sanctions.

Under the 2015 nuclear agreement, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran agreed to put limits on its nuclear activities in exchange for termination of economic and financial action.

“The Europeans themselves know that they have not fulfilled their commitments under Barjam, and accordingly, the reduction of Barjam commitments by Iran is a natural matter,” the MP added.

France, Germany and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement on Tuesday announcing they have formally triggered the dispute mechanism in the nuclear deal, but said they were not joining the United States campaign to exert maximum pressure on Tehran

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

The three European parties to the deal promised to fulfill their commitments to the deal and secure Iran’s economic benefits from it, but they have failed to do so.

On May 8, exactly one year after the U.S. abandoned the deal, Tehran announced that its “strategic patience” is over and began to partially reduce its commitments to the agreement at bi-monthly steps.

Eventually, in its fifth and final step on January 5, Iran suspended all limits under the JCPOA.

Iran has been insisting that if the European sides honor their commitments under the JCPOA, Iran will immediately reverse its decision.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday that Russia sees no grounds to trigger the dispute mechanism, Reuters reported.

The activation of this mechanism may make it impossible to return to implementation of the agreement, the ministry said.

MH/PA