Iran agrees on nuclear deal without U.S.

Tehran is willing to return to compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) if Europe restarts observing its provisions, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said.

"If Europe fulfills its deal obligations, we will return to complying with ours. We will do it even in case the United States won’t return to the JCPOA," the diplomat said. 

According to him, "it is not Iran, it is the U.S. who is looking to destroy the nuclear deal." "We can return into compliance within a few hours," TASS cited Zarif as saying.

Zarif emphasized that Iran still sees the JCPOA as a "good agreement."

Warning about the dangers he said were posed by the Trump administration's "unpredictable" policies, he noted that Iran may act "unpredictably" in response.

"Mutual unpredictability will lead to chaos. President Trump cannot expect to be unpredictable and expect others to be predictable," the foreign minister said.

The head of the Iranian section of the Center for the Study of Countries at the Middle East of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the RAS, Nina Mamedova, speaking with Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that Tehran primarily requires the launch of INSTEX system. "So far, only two financial operations have been carried out through this system, and the most important thing for Iran is the ability to receive money for exporting oil and other raw materials using INSTEX. Metallurgy and petrochemicals are key articles of Iran’s non-oil exports," she explained.

"Zarif is in a difficult situation now: on the one hand, he must save his face, and on the other, he is ready to make any compromises to stabilize the economic situation in Iran. Personally, for Zarif and President Rouhani, the suspension of the implementation of the two points of the JCPOA was very painful, but they had no other options, taking into account the pressure from the supreme leader," Nina Mamedova noted.

"In fact, nothing was really done in Arak that violated the JCPOA, the volume of uranium production was not increased. It was just a PR move, a mechanism for influencing Europeans, because no one needs Iran to really start producing weapons. For Iran itself it is easier and more profitable to comply with the JCPOA, it just cannot leave the situation as it is now: not just European companies, but not one of our companies has entered Iran, as everyone is afraid of U.S. sanctions, even Australia and Indonesia," the head of the Iranian section of the Center for the Study of Countries at the Middle East of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the RAS concluded.