In a tweet on Thursday night, Zarif wrote, “EU statement today is why JCPOA is where it is: the US has bullied Europe—and rest of world—for a year and EU can only express “regret”.”
“Instead of demanding that Iran unilaterally abide by a multilateral accord, EU should uphold obligations - incl normalization of economic ties,” he added.
In a statement on Thursday, European signatories of the Nuclear Deal, officially known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), rejected Iran’s ultimatum which calls on the bloc to make good on their commitments to the nuclear deal in the next two months or Tehran would start suspending some of its own.
"We remain fully committed to the preservation and full implementation of the JCPoA," the statement says, calling on Iran “to continue to implement its commitments under the JCPoA in full as it has done until now and to refrain from any escalatory steps.”
Iran revealed on Wednesday countermeasures to US’ withdrawal from the nuclear deal, giving the other remaining parties to the JCPOA a 60-day ultimatum to comply with their commitments, particularly those regarding Iran’s economic interests in the banking and energy sectors, before reducing portions of its own commitments to the agreement stage by stage.
Iran has stressed that it has no intention to leave the JCPOA, and its decision on reducing commitments is still within the framework of the agreement.
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