Europe has not taken a single positive step to restore economic cooperation with Iran, the country's Ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, told The International Affairs magazine in an interview
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th July, 2020) Europe has not taken a single positive step to restore economic cooperation with Iran, the country's Ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, told The International Affairs magazine in an interview.
"We have said that we will remain a part of this treaty [the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action]. During this time, the Europeans have not even taken a single positive step. Every day they said that they were developing some plans to carry out economic cooperation with us. You know, they created the INSTEX mechanism. What did this mechanism do? Nothing happened," Jalali said.
Jalali previously said that INSTEX had allowed for only one deal to be carried out � Iran's purchase of medicines from Switzerland.
INSTEX was set up by France, Germany and the United Kingdom in January 2019 to facilitate trade exchanges with Iran in the face of sanctions that the United States reinstated against Iran after unilaterally withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear accord. In March, was successfully used for the first and the only time since its formal announcement.
The JCPOA was signed in 2015 by Iran, China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union. In 2018, the US unilaterally withdrew and reimposed sanctions on Tehran. A year later, Iran began steadily dropping its own nuclear commitments unless the other signatories attempt to save the accord by facilitating trade with Tehran. As a response to the US' withdrawal, Iran also abandoned all obligations in full on January 5.
