Iran still faithful to all its JCPOA obligations, envoy tells IAEA

Iran has told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it is still faithful to the terms of its 2015 nuclear deal with the 5+1 group, and has not breached any of its commitments under the multilateral accord.

According to Press TV, Kazem Gharibabadi, the Iranian Envoy to the IAEA said “Iran has shown its good will by implementing all of its commitments under the deal wholeheartedly, and as the world witnessed, the Agency has continuously reported the full compliance of Iran with the JCPOA.”

“Iran tries to protect its national interest in accordance with international rules, regulations and negotiated agreements, and even the recent steps taken by Iran to cease the implementation of some of its commitments under the JCPOA not only are the continuation of its full compliance with the provisions of the deal consistent with its paragraph 36, but also do not break any of its international obligations, and Iran still is acting within the nuclear deal,” he added.

“However, if it [Iran] is to be the only, and I stress, the only participant who bears the burden and implements the deal unilaterally, such a lopsided implementation, naturally, would not last long, and gradual cessation of implementation of commitments would be the first step for Iran to take to bring back the lost balance in the deal,” he warned.

He made the remarks in a statement on Thursday before the IAEA Board of Governors which met on Verification and Monitoring of Iran in Light of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 passed in 2015.

In his Thursday remarks, Gharibabadi referred to the European partners’ failure to maintain the inherent balance in the deal following the US withdrawal, and said they “are not ready to pay the necessary price for the sake of maintaining the most significant achievement of diplomacy and the cornerstone of non-proliferation architecture, as they say.”

He also rejected statements by the US representative to the IAEA on Washington's readiness to negotiate with Iran as a political gimmick in order to shirk its responsibilities for noncompliance with its international obligations.

"If the US is serious about entering into negotiations, it should, first, remove all re-imposed sanctions, so that the ground would be leveled. Only then, negotiations could be followed under the framework of the JCPOA Joint Commission."

"Continuation of the imposition of sanctions and other unilateral coercive measures are not consistent and coherent with their claims for negotiations," said Gharibabadi.

ME