European Union Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell said on Tuesday that European parts to the JCPOA by triggering dispute resolution mechanism want to keep the deal alive and give more time for negotiations, APA reports citing IRNA.
Speaking to reporters, he said had conferred with President Hassan Rouhani, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif over issues of mutual interests.
He said that in addition to Iranian authorities, he had talks with foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and Iraq’s president and visited the King and Foreign Minister of Jordan to talk about instability in the region which cannot be discussed in the absence of Iran's significant role.
Borrell added that he would go to Washington next Friday because he had to “talk with everybody to make a mutual understanding to build a mutual trust which is certainly lacking.”
On the activation of dispute resolution mechanism by three European countries, the top EU diplomat stressed that this does not mean that they want to go to the Security Council in order to cancel the Nuclear Deal, but they took the measure to try to keep the deal alive and give more time for negotiations.
Europeans have agreed on enlarging and postponing the time limits in dispute resolution mechanism, according to Borrell.
He said that he asked Iranian authorities to continue cooperation with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), because it is the only body that can verify Iran’s fulfilling of the JCPOA.
Iran started a step by step process to decrease its commitment to the JCPOA last year in response to US resumption of sanctions after withdrawal from the deal. Europeans triggered a dispute resolution mechanism in the nuclear deal after Iran took the fifth and final step.
Iran has always said that it is ready to reverse all the steps in case the US returns to the deal or lifts all sanctions, or otherwise Europeans fulfill their promises to ensure Iran's economic gain from the JCPOA.
Asked about the possibility of striking a new deal with Iran, EU chief negotiator said that some voices have been asking to enlarge the scope of the deal to cover other issues like Iran’s missile program, adding: “Personally as a coordinator of the deal this is not my business, my job is to manage a deal which has been approved not the one that might be approved.
On the mechanism advised by Europe to facilitate trade with Iran, Borrell told: We’ll try to use INSTEX as much as we can and I have to recognize that INSTEX has not been able to produce not a single transaction.
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