Islam Times - Maria Zakharova: European Sides Showed Inability to Guarantee Iran's Interests

Islam Times - European partners to the nuclear deal have shown an inability to guarantee the conditions proposed to Iran under the agreement, Russian Foreign Ministry's spokesperson said Saturday.

Russian Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Maria Zakharova made the remarks in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza on Saturday.

She maintained that Iran's exit from the nuclear deal would be an undesired outcome after the diplomatic work carried out in 2013-2015, saying that "the collapse of the agreement is an extremely undesirable option."

"Unfortunately, there was a unilateral, illegitimate withdrawal from the deal by the US," she added, noting that the JCPOA was adopted by the UN Security Council, with an officially approved exit procedure, which was not respected.

"European partners, in turn, showed an inability to guarantee the conditions proposed to Iran," Zakharova added.

The Russian ministry spokesperson lamented the consequences of the US and European sides' "irresponsible" and "without real results" policy, voicing doubt that the same level of negotiations that took about four years to reach results, could repeat.

She maintained that the issue of trust in the agreement has been undermined, adding "if the result achieved through negotiations is destroyed once, who will agree to play by the same rules once again, if they are not respected?"

One year after the US' unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, and in the absence of any practical measures from the European sides to the deal to safeguard Iran's economic interests against US sanctions, Iran announced in May 2019 that it is reducing commitments to JCPOA in a transparent manner and according to Paragraphs 26 and 36 of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in a bid to “create balance between the country’s rights and commitments to the JCPOA.”

Tehran announced the start of the fourth step in reducing commitments on Nov. 5, stressing however that all measures will be taken under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency and are reversible the moment the other sides to the agreement begin to live up to their commitments.