Top EU Diplomat, IAEA Chief Meet on Iran Deal

EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, and the UN nuclear chief, Yukiya Amano, met on Monday to discuss the implementation of the Iran nuclear deal, which is facing a tough test of endurance against the US hawkish stance.

The European Union undertook to coordinate the negotiations that led to the nuclear agreement in July 2015 and the International Atomic Energy Agency is now tasked with overseeing the multi-party international pact.

It was brokered between Iran and P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany) to roll back Tehran's nuclear work in exchange for the easing of sanctions.

US President Donald Trump has been an outspoken critic of the deal and is looking for a pretext to blame Iran for walking out of the deal.

In his latest anti-deal move, Trump has asked for the IAEA's monitoring agenda to include the inspection of Iranian military sites, which idea has been flatly rejected by Iran.  

The European allies of the United Sates, as well as China and Russia, have also rejected Trump's approach and insist on the need to uphold the landmark agreement.

 EU's Staunch Support

Last week, Mogherini reaffirmed EU's staunch support for the pact.

"This was not an agreement between the two countries; I have repeated it time and again and I have the impression that we will need to repeat it time and again in the months to come," she said.

"It was a commitment undertaken by the entire international community on one side and Iran on the other, supported by a resolution of the UN Security Council, and certified regularly by the IAEA."

The resolution was adopted days after the deal's conclusion to endorse it.

Mogherini stressed, "Two years on, compliance with the deal is certified by the IAEA and by the Joint Commission I chair …, not by one single individual country. And we will have to repeat it time and again in these months to come everywhere we are, because again this is a matter of international security, international safety and also a matter of credibility of international agreements."

The Joint Commission is a panel of representatives from the JCPOA signatories, which addresses issues related to the deal's implementation.

"And I was glad to hear [last month] from the reelected president of Iran, [Hassan] Rouhani, in Tehran in his inaugural speech, his personal commitment to continue to implement their part of the deal. This is what is counting the most for us at this moment," she declared.