If Trump Abandons JCPOA, ’Europe Should Lead’: Zarif
Local Editor
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif urged Europe to defy US sanctions if US President Donald Trump's administration abandons Tehran's nuclear deal with the world powers.
In an interview with The Guardian and the Financial Times conducted in New York and published on Friday, Zarif stressed that Tehran will only abide by the restrictions under the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA], if the other signatories - the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China - all remain committed to the deal and defy any subsequent US sanctions.
"Europe should lead," Zarif said.
"There are other options and those options will depend on how the rest of the international community deals with the United States," he added.
"If Europe and Japan and Russia and China decided to go along with the United States, then I think that will be the end of the deal," Zarif pointed out.
The Iranian foreign minister warned that if the agreement collapsed, Iran would come up with more advanced nuclear technology than the pre-agreement era.
However, Zarif insisted that the technology would not be used to make weapons, in line with Tehran's obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT].
"The deal allowed Iran to continue its research and development. So we have improved our technological base."
"If we decide to walk away from the deal, we would be walking away with better technology. It will always be peaceful, because membership of the NPT is not dependent on this deal. But we will not observe the limitations that were agreed on as part of the bargain in this deal," he said.
Zarif said he expected Trump to carry out his threat and not certify Iranian compliance in a State Department report to Congress on October 15, leaving it to US lawmakers to decide in 60 days whether to re-impose anti-Iran sanctions suspended under the JCPOA.
"I think he has made a policy of being unpredictable, and now he is turning that into being unreliable as well," Zarif said.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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