An emergency meeting with parties to Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with major powers was “constructive”, Iranian deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi says.
However Araghchi warned the nation would continue to reduce its nuclear commitments if Europeans failed to salvage the pact.
“The atmosphere was constructive. Discussions were good. I cannot say that we resolved everything, I can say there are lots of commitments,” the senior Iranian nuclear negotiator told Reuters.
Parties to the deal met in Vienna on Sunday for emergency talks called in response to an escalation in tensions between Iran and the West that included confrontations at sea and Tehran’s breaches of the accord.
“As we have said, we will continue to reduce our commitments to the deal until Europeans secure Iran’s interests under the deal,” Araghchi said after the meeting.
Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran have been trying to salvage the pact since the US withdrew from it in May 2018 and re-imposed and toughened sanctions on Iran, crippling an already weak economy.
The Europeans say a breach of the agreement by Iran would escalate confrontation at a time when Tehran and Washington are at risk of a miscalculation that could lead to war.
However, their efforts to protect trade with Iran against the US sanctions have yielded nothing concrete so far.
Read the article in the Mercury (Reuters).