Global Geopolitical Series: Iran seeks guarantees from EU JCPOA partners to continue agreement as U.S. exit

As the U.S. President Donald Trump announced exit from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear agreement earlier this week, Iran has signaled that it is willing to continue with the agreement if five other international partners (Russia, China, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom) excluding the United States ensure full commitments. The above hint was signaled out by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani after President Trump’s decision.

Trump has long been critical of the agreement while all other partners to the deal urged Trump to continue with it by signing the Iran sanctions waiver and reiterated their commitments to the deal. Now, Iran wants the partners to make good on those reiterations.

Speaking after President Trump’s decision, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said that Iran would quit the landmark 2015 agreement unless the European leaders offer solid guarantees that trade relations with the EU would continue even if the U.S. sanctions are re-imposed on Iran. The comments were made by Khamenei while he addressed the Iranian government in a televised speech, “We hear that you want to continue the nuclear deal with the three European countries. I don't have confidence in these three countries…..If you don't succeed in obtaining a definitive guarantee, and I really doubt that you can at that moment, we cannot continue like this…..If you want to conclude an agreement, obtain real guarantees, otherwise tomorrow they will do the same as the United States."

European leaders are currently planning ways to bypass U.S. sanctions which will be imposed in phases in the next 90-180 days.