"The withdrawal of one country from The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will not be an essential obstruction to the agreement",The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi stated at a joint press conference with European Energy Commissioner, Miguel Arias Canete on Saturday in Tehran.
"JCPOA is an important international agreement which is in our national benefit and also is in the benefit of the region and international community", The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation added.
"Iran would continue its nuclear energy cooperation with the European Union. We are also cooperating with the EU in the nuclear fusion project", Ali Akbar Salehi said:
The EU has also promised to take the first steps for facilitating banking issues by ditching dollar and replacing it with euro in doing business with Iran, AEOI head added.
“We hope to see the actualization of Europe’s promises in the near future,” Salehi noted.
Salehi went on to add, “our future is very bright, because Iran’s position is secure enough to make it very difficult for other countries to exert pressure on us.”
Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete for his part said that the European Union will stand firm against Washington’s pressures on the bloc to prevent Europe from doing business with Iran.
“We still wish to continue our economic cooperation with Iran under the implementation of the JCPOA,” Canete said. “We believe that the JCPOA economic benefits will serve both EU’s and Iran’s interests, and that is why the EU’s energy commission has planned certain mechanisms to facilitate the realization of these goals.”
Iran says it will stay in the agreement as long as the EU provides solid guarantees that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action(JCPOA) will continue to serve Iran’s economic interests. EU says it is trying to identify ways to shield European companies doing business with Iran from the blacklash of US renewed sanctions.
The visit of the EU’s energy commissioner is the first presence of a European official in Tehran after US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal.
Iran's trade with the European Union is around 20 billion euros, evenly split between imports and exports.
The vast majority of EU purchases from Iran -- 90 percent -- is oil purchases, going primarily to Spain, France, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands and Germany.
Iran, which has the world's fourth-biggest oil reserves, produces some 3.8 million barrels of oil per day, 70 percent of which goes to China and other Asian countries, and 20 percent to Europe.
It also has the second-biggest gas reserves in the world, but limited infrastructure means little is exported.
Russia and China -- the other parties to the nuclear deal -- have also vowed to maintain trade with Iran, and because they are less exposed to US markets, are less vulnerable to economic pressure from Washington.
