Deputy Foreign Minister for political affairs said 'step-by-step' withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) is on the agenda, as the country's interests are preferred to remain in the nuclear deal.

Iran Press/Iran news: Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in an interview on Wednesday about the reason for Iran's revision decision on JCPOA said: "It is more than two years that we have faced radical government and ahead of it, a phenomenon called Donald Trump, who believed that the JCPOA is the worst and the most disgraceful deal ever happened in the U.S. history," Iran press reported.

He continued: "They have always said that the JCPOA leads to a more powerful Iran, stronger in the regional arena, with the improved economy, passing sanctions and selling its oil. They consider all above as reasons to resist against Iran."

"From the beginning, they insisted on returning sanctions to bend Iran, in order to prevent its leverage in the region," Araghchi said.

Deputy Foreign Minister for political affairs added: "At first Trump managed the situations to force Iran to withdraw from the deal, which faced Iran's intellectual movement, on the next step they tried to have Europe's accompaniment, Iran outfaced this trend and finally the U.S. concluded to withdraw from the deal."

Araghchi noted: "After U.S. withdrawal from JCPOA, they applied the most pressure and seriously follow new dimensions of sanctions on Iran, which is because Iran is a powerful country."

"In response, Iran intellectually decided ways to pass the sanctions and made some opportunities for other members of the JCPOA," Araghchi mentioned.

Following the interview, Abbas Araghchi said: "We activated all mechanisms in JCPOA, the common commission had meetings four times during last year. Countries remaining in the deal have committed to compensate effects of the U.S. withdrawal." 

"They admitted in their statements to serve the interests of Iran in operational ways in fields of finance and banking, oil and gas, petrochemical products, transportation, investment, business, etc. The JCPOA remained, but European countries were not that much successful in practical activities," Deputy Foreign Minister continued.

Related news:

Senior MP: Europeans haven't carried out even one percent of their commitments under JCPOA

"We have not left the JCPOA so far, but we have put such a move on our agenda and that would happen step-by-step on each stage," Araghchi reiterated.

"No country can accuse Iran of breaching or leaving the nuclear deal," the diplomat noted, adding that all the measures Tehran has adopted so far, including Wednesday's move, has been within the deal's framework.

On May 08, Iranian President announced that Iran has not and will not leave the nuclear negotiating table, and sincerely wants the nuclear deal to succeed, but the JCPOA needs major surgery to survive.

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