Alwaght- Iran's Foreign Minister has warned that if the European countries fail to properly fulfill their commitments, Iran would take its own measures to counter the US withdrawal from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif made the remarks while addressing reporters in the Austrian capital Vienna on Friday following a meeting with his counterparts from Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia for the first time since US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out from the nuclear accord, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in May.
Zarif said all the remaining signatories to a 2015 landmark nuclear agreement have political will to stand up to the United States' move to withdraw from the deal.
Zarif pointed to his "very serious and constructive" talks with the remaining parties of the nuclear deal and said, "I believe that there is political will to continue work and save this agreement but we must see what will happen to this issue in practice."
The top Iranian diplomat said the participants at the Vienna meeting agreed to take "good measures" to save the JCPOA.
The US president announced on May 8 that Washington was walking away from the nuclear agreement and that he plans to reinstate US nuclear sanctions on Iran and impose "the highest level" of economic bans on the Islamic Republic.
Under the JCPOA, Iran undertook to put limits on its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of nuclear-related sanctions imposed against Tehran.
Meanwhile, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Iran and the remaining parties to the JCPOA have agreed to continue talking, including on economic measures, over how to save the nuclear deal after the US withdrawal.
Mogherini, who chairs the Vienna talks, read a statement while speaking at a news conference after the first ministerial meeting between the remaining parties to the JCPOA since the United States withdrawal.
She added that the participants will work on the issues such as "the encouragement of further investments in Iran, the protection of economic operators for their investments and other commercial and financial activities in or in relation to Iran, the bringing together of private and public sector experts, the practical support for trade with and investment in Iran, the protection of companies from the extraterritorial effects of US sanctions."
