Iran expected to further reduce commitments under JCPoA

Iran is expected to further reduce its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) in response to the failure by the European signatories of the treaty to keep up their promise of providing the country with relief from US sanctions, state media reported on Saturday.

In a telephonic conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the European Union should fulfill its commitments under the JCPoA in order to salvage the treaty, reported Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

"Iran's recent moves have been completely within the JCPoA and meant to save it. The European Union should fulfill more of its commitments and take more actions to salvage the deal," said Rouhani.

 

In response, Macron noted that the EU would do whatever it could to compensate for the ineffectiveness of its moves to end the US sanctions on Iran.

"We accept that Europe's actions to compensate for the US sanctions haven't been effective and successful but that we will do whatever we can to make up for it," Macron said.

Citing an "informed source," Iran's Fars news agency had recently reported that Iran has exceeded the amount of enriched uranium that it was allowed to have under a 2015 nuclear deal (officially called JCPoA).

The country stopped complying with some elements of the agreement in May, a year after the US unilaterally withdrew from the deal.

The agreement was signed with an aim to limit Iran's civilian energy programme, thereby preventing it from developing nuclear weapons at some point in the future, in exchange for relief from sanctions that were crippling the country's economy.

The deal was hailed as a major diplomatic victory by the Obama administration. However, last year, Donald Trump-led US government had withdrawn from the deal, terming it as "defective at its core".

Washington's decision of pulling out from the agreement soured its ties with Iran. In the past year, the Trump administration has slapped a multitude of sanctions on Tehran citing the latter's support to state-sponsored terrorism and conflicts.