Europe Seeking to Keep US in JCPOA by Offering Concessions: Iran

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Seyyed Abbas Araqchi says some European countries have adopted a wrong approach vis-à-vis Washington’s policy on the nuclear deal signed by Tehran and six world powers known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“Some Europeans believe that if they give [US President Donald] Trump some concessions in areas other than the JCPOA, they will be able to keep him in the agreement. This is a completely wrong policy and will definitely backfire. We have frankly said this to Europe,” Araqchi noted in an interview with a radio program on Monday.

“Of course, even within Europe, they have reached no clear conclusion on this subject,” he added, as quoted by the Persian-language Entekhab news website.

He further said European countries know that they will lose their credibility with the international community if they scrap the agreement.

The Iranian official said the US president has been trying to scuttle or reform the JCPOA.

“In the first step, they wanted to make the situation tough for Iran to make it withdraw from the JCPOA, and then they threw the ball into the US Congress’ court, but to no avail,” Araqchi noted.

“Over the past year, European countries have been supporting the JCPOA, and have stood by Iran and against the US,” he underlined, adding that such an extent of differences between Europe and the United States has been unprecedented.

“In the UN Security Council, Trump put pressure on Iran, both over the nuclear issue and the recent chaos and unrest [in the country,] but he failed [to achieve his goals] again,” Araqchi noted, predicting that Iran will definitely face new challenges in the coming months.