NEW YORK — Officials representing parties who finalized the nuclear deal with Iran concluded Wednesday night the regime has not violated the terms of the agreement, but America may still ultimately withdraw from the arrangement.
European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters Wednesday that the EU, China, Russia, the United States, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom met with Iran to discuss the current status of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was finalized back in July of 2015.
“It has been frank and open…we have agreed on the fact that all sides are implementing, so far, fully the agreement as it has been certified by the IAEA eight times for what concerns the nuclear commitments of Iran,” Mogherini told reporters.
President Donald Trump stated on Wednesday afternoon he had come to a decision on the Iran deal he called an “embarrassment” during his speech to the UN on Tuesday.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said at a press conference following Trump’s remarks that although Iran is in “technical compliance” with the deal, the agreement has not stopped Iran from remaining a threat and the president has not told anyone his final decision on whether to withdraw from the Iran deal or not.
Mogherini specifically addressed that the U.S. would be handling Iran policy on its own outside of the JCPOA.
“There are other issues that are out of the scope of the agreement and these issues might be tackled in two different formats, including the fact that it’s not a mystery, I guess, the United States is having a review on its own Iranian policy. This is out of the discussion of the JCPOA– out of the discussion of this format for months,” she said.
When asked if there was discussion of what would happen to the JCPOA if the U.S. were to withdraw from it, Mogherini replied, “No we didn’t discuss that, but I can tell you, as Europeans here, I’m not speaking on behalf of all the others. I’m speaking for the European Union. Europeans we will make sure that the agreement stays.”
Mogherini stressed that the JCPOA is not a bilateral agreement nor an agreement that involves six or seven parties.
“This is a U.N. Security Council resolution with an annex and, as such, all member states of the United Nations are considered to be binded to the implementation of it. So, it doesn’t belong to one country — six countries — seven countries — to the European Union. It belongs to the international community,” Mogherini said.
“The last time we received a report from the IAEA was just 10 days ago and this was not under discussion. All agreed on this — no violations. And my sincere hope is that this is going to continue to be the case,” she said.