EU works to save unraveling nuclear agreement with Iran
- 5 years ago
In its latest effort to de-escalate tensions between the U.S. and Iran, the EU's foreign policy chief has urged Tehran to go back to FULL compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.
For more on this and other news from around the world, let's turn to our Hong Yoo.
Tell us more about what was discussed at Monday's meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
Like you said Connyoung, the European powers tried to persuade Iran to reverse its course and go back to complete compliance with the 2015 nuclear accord.
They tried to avoid the collapse of a deal that had proved effective in keeping the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons.
Iran decided recently to no longer abide by the deal's obligations and increased its stockpile of enriched uranium as their relationship with Washington deteriorated.
Yet, Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell, who will take over from Federica Mogherini after she steps down as the EU's foreign policy chief in November, said the deviations are not significant enough to assess that Iran has broken the agreement.
In efforts to save the unraveling agreement, the EU is trying to help the Iranian economy that has been crippled due to U.S. sanctions.
France, Germany and the UK have developed a new financial mechanism called INSTEX to continue trading with Iran despite Washington's punitive measures.
"We know that all our activities would probably not compensate or not get to the level of compensation that follows the decision of the United States. Still, our intention is to try to mitigate the impact of the United States' decision to reimpose sanctions and to stop implementing the agreement. So we're trying our best to mitigate the impact of the US decisions to compensate as far as we can in the market system we're living in."
EU nations also blamed the Trump administration for escalating tensions by withdrawing from the deal last year.
China, one of the parties in the deal, also said U.S. pressure was the root cause of recent developments and called on the Trump administration to fix the trouble it helped to create.
For more on this and other news from around the world, let's turn to our Hong Yoo.
Tell us more about what was discussed at Monday's meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
Like you said Connyoung, the European powers tried to persuade Iran to reverse its course and go back to complete compliance with the 2015 nuclear accord.
They tried to avoid the collapse of a deal that had proved effective in keeping the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons.
Iran decided recently to no longer abide by the deal's obligations and increased its stockpile of enriched uranium as their relationship with Washington deteriorated.
Yet, Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell, who will take over from Federica Mogherini after she steps down as the EU's foreign policy chief in November, said the deviations are not significant enough to assess that Iran has broken the agreement.
In efforts to save the unraveling agreement, the EU is trying to help the Iranian economy that has been crippled due to U.S. sanctions.
France, Germany and the UK have developed a new financial mechanism called INSTEX to continue trading with Iran despite Washington's punitive measures.
"We know that all our activities would probably not compensate or not get to the level of compensation that follows the decision of the United States. Still, our intention is to try to mitigate the impact of the United States' decision to reimpose sanctions and to stop implementing the agreement. So we're trying our best to mitigate the impact of the US decisions to compensate as far as we can in the market system we're living in."
EU nations also blamed the Trump administration for escalating tensions by withdrawing from the deal last year.
China, one of the parties in the deal, also said U.S. pressure was the root cause of recent developments and called on the Trump administration to fix the trouble it helped to create.