BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 1. It has become very difficult for European countries to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) regarding Iran's nuclear program, Iranian expert Mehrdad Emadi told Trend.
“There are many reasons for this, for example - Iran's indirect participation in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as well as sending military supplies to Russia, Iran's refusal to sell gas to European countries, Iran's current government's development of relations with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and detention of European citizens in Iran,” the expert said.
Emadi added that as a result, Iran's trade with European Union member countries decreased by about 80 percent.
The expert also pointed out that European countries' view of Iran was that Iran is a country with high potential for trade, industry and energy cooperation. However, Iran's comprehensive steps in the direction of China's goals in the region, on the other hand, its cooperation with Russia in many fields, have completely changed the view of European countries.
“In addition, Iran's uranium enrichment above 80 percent and testing of long-range missiles means crossing all military and security red lines of European and Western countries,” he noted.
According to Emadi, the European countries' energy agreement with Iran, the efforts of the US to show interest in discussions with Iran regarding its nuclear program, the potential of Iran to meet Europe's energy needs, and as a result, the decrease of Europe's dependence on Russian gas, created the interest of Europe to look at Iran as a trade partner.
However, due to Iran's choices made, from the West's point of view, the parties who evaluate Iran as an economic opportunity have either turned to other countries of the region, or they look at the Iranian government as if it's the 1990's Iraq.
In January 2016, JCPOA was launched between Iran and the P5+1 group (US, Russia, China, UK, France, and Germany) in connection with Iran's nuclear program. In May 2018, the US announced its withdrawal from the deal and imposed sanctions on Iran in November of the same year. To preserve the agreements reached as part of the JCPOA, the European signatories of the deal started in January 2019 that a financial mechanism for maintaining trade with Iran called INSTEX was formed.
On May 8, 2019, Iran announced that it had ceased fulfilling its commitments regarding the sale of over 300 kilograms of uranium, as stated in the deal, basing its decision on the other signatories that have not fulfilled their obligations. On July 7, Iran announced that it will not be fulfilling its commitments regarding the enrichment of uranium at 3.67 percent and the reconstruction of the Arak Heavy Water Reactor Facility as stated in the deal.
Iran announced that it will enrich uranium using next-generation centrifuges and will not mix it with the enriched uranium residues as part of the third step of reducing commitments in JCPOA on Sept.5. On Nov. 5, 2019, Iran announced that it took the fourth step in connection with reducing its commitments to the nuclear agreement. So, uranium gas is being pumped to the centrifuges at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant.
On Jan.2020, Iran took the last fifth step in reducing the number of its commitments within JCPOA.
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