Spokesman: Iran to Take Next JCPOA Step Decisively

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson warned the remaining parties to the 2015 nuclear deal that their failure to ensure Iran’s interests with practical measures will force Tehran to take the third step to reduce its commitments more decisively than the two previous ones.

“Iran is serious about taking measures to reduce the (JCPOA) commitments, and if such a trend goes on, it will be taking the third step, which will be firmer than the first and second ones,” Abbas Mousavi said at a press conference on Monday.

On INSTEX -a payment channel that the three European parties to the nuclear deal are working on to maintain trade with Iran- Mousavi made it clear that lack of practical measures will not be acceptable to Iran and will leave Tehran with no choice but to take the third step decisively.

“We are still waiting for Europeans to take practical and tangible measures for implementing the JCPOA,” he said.

Earlier this month, Iran declared the second step to reduce its commitments by ramping up the level of uranium enrichment to over 3.67 percent.

Iran maintains that the new measures are not designed to harm the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but to save the accord by creating a balance in the commitments.

Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, US, Britain, France, and Germany) on July 14, 2015, reached a conclusion over the text of the nuclear deal.

The accord took effect in January 2016 and was supposed to terminate all nuclear-related sanctions against Iran all at once, but its implementation was hampered by the US policies and its eventual withdrawal from the deal.

On May 8, 2018, US President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the nuclear accord.

Following the US withdrawal, Iran and the remaining parties launched talks to save the deal.

However, the EU’s failure of ensure Iran’s economic interests forced Tehran to stop honoring certain commitments, including an unlimited rise in the stockpile of enriched uranium.