"If preserving JCPOA is the goal, then there is no escape from mustering the courage to comply with commitment to normalize Iran's economic relations instead of making extraneous demands. Being the party to still honor the deal in deeds & not just words is not Iran's only option," Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said Thursday in a Twitter statement. JCPOA refers to the Iran deal's formal title, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
US President Donald Trump has not followed through on the terms of the landmark bargain. Washington formally withdrew from the accord in May, leading to the imposition of renewed sanctions against Iran that the deal had suspended. Those sanctions started to bite earlier this month. European officials are still scrambling to respond to the situation, since European firms doing business with Iran are at risk of falling within the scope of the new US sanctions.
"Individuals or entities that fail to wind down activities with Iran risk severe consequences," the American president said earlier in August. A second phase of the sanctions program targeting Iran's lucrative oil exports kicks in during November.
Iran agreed to multiple concessions in the nuclear deal in exchange for warmer economic relations with the West. One of those concessions was to allow investigators from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect Iranian nuclear energy facilities.
On Thursday, the IAEA released a six-page report after conducting "snap inspections" at "all the sites and locations in Iran which it needed to visit," Bloomberg reports, citing a copy of the report to be released publicly in September. "The agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities and locations outside facilities where nuclear material is customarily used," an excerpt of the IAEA report reads.
The EU has made offers to assuage Iran's concerns about the economic benefits it was supposed to receive under the deal with which it continues to comply. When the EU proposed a modest $21 million aid package for Iran on August 23, the US State Department claimed the following day that it "sends the wrong message," Bloomberg reports.
The only Jewish hospital in Iran faces a shortage of critical medications as a byproduct of the tightening restrictions on trade, Al Jazeera reports.
Foreign ministers from EU nations commenced informal meetings in Vienna on Thursday, UrduPoint News reported. Topics relating to the Middle East are slated to be addressed by the dignitaries, UrduPoint News noted, citing an Austrian website dedicated to Austria's presidency of the Council of the European Union.
The nuclear deal's peril stands to embolden hardliner factions in Iran. "There is no problem with negotiations and keeping contact with the Europeans, but you should give up hope on them over economic issues or the nuclear deal," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told President Hassan Rouhani during a recent cabinet meeting, Sputnik reported August 30.
