Iran's Abandoning Of Obligations Under JCPOA Complicates Sanctions Issue -Russian Diplomat

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd August, 2021) Iran's distancing from the original obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) makes the lifting of sanctions farther removed, Russia's Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov said.

"Iran is moving further away from its obligations under the original JCPOA. Perhaps there is even some irrationality in this, because if the negotiations are resolved by reaching an agreement, all these deviations from the original nuclear deal will have to be reversed. And the further Iran moves away from its original obligations, the longer it will take, which, accordingly, will affect the timing of lifting the sanctions," Ulyanov told the Russian Izvestia newspaper.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday commenting on the Iran nuclear deal that Tehran has to make the next decisions on the JCPOA as the "ball remains in Iran's court."

On Wednesday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said that the US has repeatedly failed to keep its promise to remove sanctions on Iran and instead demands to add new articles to the JCPOA.

Since April, Vienna has been hosting sessions of the JCPOA joint commission, as well as informal meetings in different formats, aimed at preventing the Iran nuclear deal from falling apart after the US exit. The sixth round of the talks finished on June 20.

In 2015, Iran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, or the Iran nuclear deal) with the P5+1 group of countries (the United States, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom - plus Germany) and the European Union. It required Iran to scale back its nuclear program and severely downgrade its uranium reserves in exchange for sanctions relief, including lifting the arms embargo five years after the deal's adoption. In 2018, the US abandoned its conciliatory stance on Iran, withdrawing from the JCPOA and implementing hard-line policies against Tehran, prompting Iran to largely abandon its obligations under the accord.