Any US Breach of JCPOA Risks Confrontation With EU

The new US President Donald Trump would run the risk of confrontation with European allies if he were to violate the 2015 nuclear deal, a lawmaker said.

“Europeans should try to dissuade Americans from breaching the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, otherwise they would have to stand against them to avoid any loss,” Ali Bakhtiari also told ICANA on Monday.

Iran and P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany) struck the deal on July 14, 2015, to end a 12-year dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program.

It has been in effect since last January to ease sanctions against the Islamic Republic in return for time-bound constraints on its nuclear energy program.

Trump, who took an oath of office on Jan. 20, threatened on the campaign trail to tear up the accord, but later backed down, conceding that it would be too hard to dismantle a deal enshrined in a UN resolution.

Resolution 2231 was adopted by the UN Security Council days after the conclusion of the agreement to endorse it.

Trump later said he would demand that the deal be revised if he became president.

Speaker after speaker at a UN Security Council meeting on Jan. 18 on the implementation of the action plan stressed its historic nature and its success after its first year.

The United Nations, the European Union and key players in the Iran nuclear agreement in a united message called on the then president-elect Trump to remain committed to implementing the accord.

EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, who facilitated the agreement, praised the deal as “a major achievement” and said all participants have fulfilled their commitments, citing “a staggering 63%” rise in EU-Iran trade in the first three quarters of 2016 as one example of the results of lifting sanctions.

But Mogherini stressed in a statement read by the EU ambassador to the UN that “implementation is an ongoing task and we expect full and effective implementation throughout the lifetime of the agreement”.