Can Iran nuclear deal function without US?

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh has asked OPEC to include a separate agenda item for the June OPEC meeting on support to the member country that is under Western sanctions. Moscow believes that by announcing a unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the US sought a total confrontation with the Islamic Republic of Iran to achieve its own political goals.

Commenting on the situation, senior research fellow of the Institute for Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Sazhin, said that the nuclear deal was the most important element that could solve the Iranian nuclear problem: "I regard this document as the second most important to strengthen the regime of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons since the beginning of the nuclear era, since 1945. The first one was the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The international community showed that it is still possible to curb the nuclear ambitions of any country. The JCPOA can serve an example for solving many other important, serious, maybe even non-nuclear problems."

According to Vladimir Sazhin, Trump's withdrowal from the deal will affect the idea of non-proliferation: "Trump's policy in this respect opens the way for the "threshold" powers, there are about 30 of which in the world, that can create nuclear infrastructure, if not an atomic bomb. It opens an opportunity of not paying attention to the IAEA and other international laws and do what they want."

Answering the question whether the US decision would lead to a breakdown of the international nuclear program deal, Sazhin said: "Not only Russia and China, members of the P5+1, which held negotiation with Iran since 2006, opposed the US policy, but also and three US allies who were co-authors of the JCPOA - the UK, Germany and France, who immediately criticised Trump's decision. The fate of the SVPD is hanging by a thread. If Europe manages to withstand US pressure, it is possible that the JCPOA will be preserved in a somewhat different form. Iranian officials said that if everyone except the United States complies with the requirements of the JCPOA, Iran will also not leave this agreement. So there is hope that after the JCPOA will function without the US. "

According to coordinator of the Middle East programs of the Russian International Affairs Council Ruslan Mammadov, the problem is that any large European company that is interested in the Iranian market may not get immunity from these US sanctions. European governments are not going to protect their companies from US sanctions. "When companies assess the US markets in which they are present and the Iranian market, they understand that it would be better to abandon the Iranian market for the sake of the agreements they have with the US market. European companies can go to Iran only if European institutions agree to protect their companies. But, apparently, it will not happen," the expert believes.

According to Mammadov, sanctions of the United Nations and the EU were more worse for Iran than the US sanctions: "The EU expressed regret that these sanctions were adopted, but countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel, of course, expressed satisfaction. Recently, news came that Saudi Arabia had introduced sanctions against German companies that could participate in public tenders. Saudi Arabia's differences with some European companies are tied to Iran ... In my opinion, Iran will not change its regional policy. Perhaps, even the deterioration of the situation is possible, first of all, for US interests in the region. The Iranians have a variety of options here, including pressing, counteracting the Americans in Syria, Iraq and other countries."