European Interest

EU to discuss Iran’s nuclear deal deadline

Wikimedia Commons/Tasnim News Agency/CC BY 4.0
Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif meeting with Michael Roth in his office in Tehran, 6 August, 2017.

Iran, Germany, France and the UK are slated to discuss the proposed 45-60-day deadline Iran has given Europe to provide “guarantees” to safeguard Iran’s interests after the US’ withdrawal from a nuclear accord reached in 2015.

German Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Roth said on May 14 that it will be necessary to discuss “whether we really make progress with such dates and with such deadlines”.

As reported by Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany’s international broadcaster, following US President Donald Trump‘s decision to withdraw from the agreement, an Iranian official was quoted on the parliament’s website as saying: “The Europeans have between 45 and 60 days to give the necessary guarantees to safeguard Iranian interests and compensate the damages caused by the US pullout”.

The comments were attributed to Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as reported by Seyyed Hossein Naghavi, spokesman of the parliament’s foreign affairs commission.

Roth said Europe was willing “to assume greater economic responsibility in Iran” if Tehran continued to follow the agreement that is intended to prevent the construction of nuclear weapons by Tehran through international controls.

He also acknowledged that the US sanctions against Iran could affect European companies, which shows “how difficult” the situation was to resolve, said Roth.

Iran signed the nuclear deal in 2015 with the United States, the EU, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia.

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