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On May 8, 2018, the United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action(JCPOA).
In a joint statement responding to the U.S. withdrawal, the leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom stated that United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 endorsing the nuclear deal remained the 'binding international legal framework for the resolution of the dispute'.
Despite Tehran's practical commitment to the JCPOA, the EU support has remained at the political level, while the Brussels leaders are expected to pay the cost to pre-empt JCPOA total termination.
The 'Special Purpose Vehicle' (SPV), which was scheduled to enter into the implementation phase by November 2018 and simultaneous with the second round of US sanctions, after a few months delay finally gave its place to INSTEX. The mechanism first reflected on the January 31 in the statement of the three EU member states during a meeting held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, but has not yet entered into an executive phase, and the Europeans have related it to the official accession of Iran to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Making excuse and buying time by Europe has led some experts and officials in our country to conclude that Washington and Brussels are taking steps on the same road.
In an interview with 'Blog', Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned that In the context of Europe's commitments to action, 'Europe has played only less than 10% of its commitment to action.'
'In their general comments, they have made up 100% (they have fulfilled their obligations), but in reality they have implemented less than 1% of their commitments', Zarif added in this interview.
Recently, Iranian deputy foreign minister warned the European parties to the 2015 nuclear deal that Tehran would not wait forever to gain the economic benefits of the JCPOA, and is going to respond to Washington’s illegal policies appropriately.
Abbas Araqchi said in a meeting with the chairman and a number of members of the Austria-Iran parliamentary friendship group in Tehran, “the JCPOA is an international agreement and the United States has violated the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 by withdrawing from it, but unfortunately this illegal action has not been addressed with an appropriate response from the Security Council or European countries.”
Stressing the fact that Iran has fulfilled its commitments under the JCPOA, Araqchi criticized Europe’s policies and actions regarding the nuclear accord, warning that “the patience of the Islamic Republic is not indefinite.”
Araqchi said Iran has so far given enough time and chance to other parties to compensate for the consequences of the US withdrawal from the deal, and now it is time to act.
“We welcome the political positions of the European Union, but just political support does not help any further to preserve the JCPOA, The JCPOA is not an economic agreement and it is of security nature. If it matters to Europe, then it should also pay the costs to maintain it,” he added.
The Iranian official commented on the White House’s decision to “bring Iran’s oil exports down to zero”, saying that the Islamic Republic of Iran does not allow any country to replace it in the global oil market, and the responsibility for any consequences falls on the US and the country or countries that seek to replace Iran in the market.
In other hand, Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, says the US sanctions are 'economic terrorism'.
'They want to put pressure on the Iranian people in order to change their policy. That is the way the United States has acted for 40 years and, particularly since President Trump came to office, it violated a commitment by another US president, President Obama,' he told Al Jazeera.
He said that the sanctions won't have any 'political effect' and that Iran has developed various schemes with partnering countries to help protect themselves.
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