EU keen to refloat Iran nuclear accord

Bloc's foreign policy chief sees Biden's arrival as opportunity to revive pact

The European Union hopes to seize opportunities arising from a new administration in the United States to revive a key nuclear deal with Iran.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Tuesday that the EU will do whatever it can to make the deal a security provider for the whole region.

"We have been working during this year to keep this deal alive in spite of the American withdrawal," he told an event marking the 10th anniversary of the EU External Action Service.

The nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, was signed in 2015 between Iran and China, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the EU.

US President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal in May 2018 and started to reimpose economic sanctions on Iran. US President-elect Joe Biden made it clear during his campaign that his administration would favor a return to the JCPOA.

Borrell praised the JCPOA, calling it very important for European security and saying that without the deal, Iran would already have become a nuclear power.

He said Europeans hope to bring back the two parties, the US and Iran, to the deal. He explained that Iran is still in the deal but has to go back to full compliance in order to get the reward offered by the deal, clearly referring to the removal of US sanctions.

Following the US withdrawal, Iran started to scrap some limits on uranium enrichment but still stayed in the deal.

The JCPOA Joint Commission will meet in Vienna on Dec 16. Representatives of China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and Iran will discuss ongoing work to preserve the deal and how to ensure the full and effective implementation of the agreement by all sides. Borrell is the coordinator of the commission.

Recent assassination

On Tuesday, Borrell said he had spoken with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

"I also stressed the importance of preserving the JCPOA. I will continue as coordinator to work toward full implementation by all parties," he said on social media.

Borrell noted early in the day that there are people who don't want the deal to be revived, referring to the recent assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh on Friday in Absard, Iran.

"This is not the way to solve problems. We're not going to prevent Iran's nuclear (program) by killing their experts and nuclear scientists," he said.

The EU has condemned the assassination. In a statement, it said: "This is a criminal act and runs counter to the principle of respect for human rights the EU stands for."

Federica Mogherini, Borrell's predecessor who negotiated the JCPOA in 2015, recalled Trump's withdrawal as a major challenge.

"That for me was the fundamental test of European capacity to be autonomous under a lot of pressure from Washington," she said.

France, Germany and the UK created a special purpose vehicle, known as INSTEX, early last year to help EU firms do business with Iran by avoiding US sanctions. But it was little used.

"I am sure that Europeans and European Union will manage to recover somehow the full compliance of the agreement, and maybe even to build on that in the future," said Mogherini, an Italian politician who is now rector of the College of Europe.

John Kerry, who represented the US in the 2015 deal when he was secretary of state, has been appointed as Biden's special climate envoy with a seat at the National Security Council.

In an open letter on Monday, six former senior European officials urged the EU to call on the incoming Biden administration and Iran to swiftly come back into full compliance with the JCPOA.

"The Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign against Iran has failed, with the unprecedented sanctions negatively impacting ordinary Iranians," says the letter signed by figures such as former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt, former NATO secretary-general Javier Solana and former German ambassador to the US Wolfgang Ischinger.