Tehran's Official Reveals What It Will Take to Keep Country in Nuclear Deal

TEHRAN (Sputnik) - Tehran’s decision on whether or not to stay in the Iran nuclear deal will depend on the outcome of negotiations with other signatories and the extent to which they will manage to compensate for the US withdrawal, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Abbas Araghchi said.

"Iran has already announced its stance in this regard and [Iranian President] Hassan Rouhani announced that Iran has yet to decide whether or not to stay in the deal. Our decision depends on negotiations with European countries, Russia and China," Araghchi was quoted by the IRNA news agency as saying during his visit to Moscow on Friday.

He noted that Tehran was determined to wait and see whether the remaining parties to the deal would manage to make up for the US pullout and ensure Iran's benefits from the deal.

He also commented on Tehran’s cooperation with Moscow saying that bilateral cooperation would continue regardless of the JCPOA’s fate.

"Iran-Russia relationship is beyond the JCPOA. We will have interactions with Russia with the JCPOA or without it," he said.

As the high diplomatic official noted, Iran expects the EU parties to present their package of measures designed to keep the agreement in force by July.

"We hope that by the end of the month this package will be handed to us. Currently, the Europeans, with the support from Russia and China, are making efforts to prepare this package of proposals, so that Iran would be able to continue to sell its oil, receive profit from it and carry out bank and insurance operations," Araghchi said, as quoted by the Tasnim news agency.

On Friday, Araghchi said that Tehran might withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in the coming weeks, unless Europe proved its commitment to preserving the agreement after the US pullout.

READ MORE: Tehran May Quit Nuke Deal in Coming Weeks — Deputy Foreign Minister

Later in the same day, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov held consultations with Araghchi. During the talks, the sides discussed interaction on maintaining the Iran nuclear deal and pledged to continue cooperation to protect trade and economic relations from unlawful extraterritorial US sanctions.

READ MORE: Tehran Strikes Back at US Over Allegedly Urging Japan to Halt Iran Oil Imports

In May, US President Donald Trump announced that Washington would exit the JCPOA, signed in 2015 in Vienna by Iran, the European Union, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany. In addition, Trump decided to reinstate sanctions on Iran, previously lifted under the agreement in exchange for Tehran maintaining a peaceful nuclear program. The unilateral move taken by the United States has been opposed by other signatories of the Iran deal.