TEHRAN – European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Sunday that he will remain committed to keep the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the JCPOA, alive.

“As coordinator I remain committed to listen to all sides and keep the #NuclearDeal alive,” he said in a tweet.

He posted the tweet after a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

“Met with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov on the margins of @MunSecConf. Discussions included #MEPP and #JCPOA,” Borrell wrote.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Friday that Iran’s decisions to reduce JCPOA commitments are reversible if Europe takes “meaningful” steps in preserving the JCPOA.

Tehran’s moves to ramp-up its nuclear program in the past few months are reversible “providing that Europe takes steps that are meaningful,” Zarif told reporters on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, according to AP.

Borrell has said that Europe must ensure Iran’s benefits from the nuclear deal if it wants the deal to survive.

“If we want the Iran nuclear deal to survive, we need to ensure that Iran benefits if it returns to full compliance,” he wrote in an article in the Project Syndicate published on February 8.

Borrell was notified in January by Paris, London, and Berlin that they had triggered the resolution dispute mechanism.

He has said that the EU will extend indefinitely the time limit to resolve disputes in the nuclear deal to avoid having to go to the UN Security Council or triggering new sanctions.

“There is an agreement that more time is needed due to the complexity of the issues involved. The timeline is therefore extended,” Borrell said in a statement on January 24.

In May 2019 Iran started to reduce its commitments to the JCPOA at bi-monthly intervals in response to the abrogation of the pact by the U.S. coupled with the European Union’s inaction to shield Iran’s economy from sanctions.

NA/PA