Russia slams E3 trio for renewed Iran sanctions

“Moscow strongly condemns the intention of Britain, Germany and France to deliberately violate the requirements of the JCPOA and UN Security Council Resolution 2231,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Saturday, referring to the nuclear deal by its official acronym.

Zakharova stressed that the decision by the Europeans was made out of anger, exactly at a time when certain conditions had been created for the “revival of the JCPOA” through progress in indirect negotiations between Iran and the United States.

“We strongly call on the European parties to the JCPOA to immediately change their destructive path and fully comply with their international obligations by strictly complying with UN Security Council Resolution 2231,” Zakharova added.

It came after the three European signatories to the Iran nuclear deal announced that they intended to keep in place the sanctions, which were due to expire next month.

In their announcement on Thursday, the European countries cited three reasons for their decision, including allegations that Iran has transferred drones to Russia for use in the Ukraine war and the likelihood that Tehran might provide Moscow with ballistic missiles.

The Islamic Republic has roundly rejected both the allegations, citing its principled opposition to the war.

The three European countries also accused Iran of violating the JCPOA, referring to a number of legal nuclear countermeasures that the Islamic Republic began to take after the United States illegally left the JCPOA in 2018 and the three states failed to offer any compensation for the US withdrawal.

This is while Iran began the countermeasures in line with the JCPOA’s Articles 26 and 36 allowing the deal’s participants to scale back their commitments should the other parties do the same.

Moreover, the Islamic Republic launched the retaliatory steps after giving Washington and the E3 a year to compensate for their violations of the JCPOA.

Iran proved the peaceful nature of its nuclear program to the world by signing the JCPOA with six world powers. However, Washington’s exit in May 2018 and its subsequent re-imposition of sanctions against Tehran left the future of the deal in limbo.

Multilateral diplomatic efforts to revive the JCPOA have also been stalled since last August, with Iran blaming the United States for failing to guarantee that it will not leave the deal again.