PRESS RELEASE
Iran, U.K., France, and Germany To Hold Talks on Iran Nuclear Deal
Jan. 9, 2018 (EIRNS)—Federica Mogherini, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, issued a statement yesterday, announcing that she, along with the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, will be meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif on Jan. 11 to discuss the state of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 nuclear deal by which Iran agreed to not pursue nuclear weapons in return for the lifting of economic sanctions.
"The meeting will take place in the context of the ongoing work to ensure a full and continued implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,"
the EU said in a statement. The United Kingdom, France, and Germany were the three European members of the P5+1, the six countries that negotiated the JCPOA with Iran.
The meeting was apparently scheduled at Zarif’s request and comes ahead of the Jan. 12 deadline for U.S. President Donald Trump to certify Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA. Last October, Trump refused the recertification but also waived the reimposition of sanctions, leaving the next step to the U.S. Congress. Zarif pointed to the Jan. 5 UN Security Council session on Iran’s internal situation, convened at the request of the United States, saying that the Security Council’s support for the JCPOA and its refusal to comment on Iran’s domestic issues revealed that the new U.S. administration has been isolated in the international community.
Yesterday, during and on the sidelines of a security conference in Tehran, a number of Iranian officials issued a chorus of warnings that they expected the U.S. to pull out of the JCPOA and that Iranian response would be "proportional and heavy," in the words of Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi.
