Unreliable US should return to JCPOA first: UK thinkers

A British analyst, a former UK envoy to Damascus and an editor for The Independent believe that the US and the EU have done nothing to prevent the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA); therefore, they are now expected to make amend.

New US President Joe Biden criticized his predecessor Donald Trump’s foreign policies especially his withdrawal from the JCPOA during the 2020 presidential election campaigns, but the incumbent administration has done nothing to come back to the deal and it has even set conditions for returning to the agreement.

Biden emphasized that his country will not return to the JCPOA until Iran stops enriching uranium. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has urged Iran to abide by its commitments under the accord.

The European signatories to the JCPOA promised that they would compensate for losses inflicted on Iran after the US pull-out from the agreement, but they did nothing tangible and they are sending vague signals even in this juncture. Germany called for a greater agreement with Iran on its missile power and developments in the West Asia region. France introduced itself as a sincere mediator, calling for participation of Saudi Arabia and the Zionist regime in future negotiations on the JCPOA.

In this respect, IRNA interviewed with three political experts who express their doubt about trustworthiness of the US and the EU.

Rodney Shakespeare, a British analyst, said that the US and Europe purposefully violated the nuclear deal and they are not trustworthy partners.

As a result of US unilateral sanctions on Iran, the country’s economy has lost billions of dollars for two years, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh were assassinated and thousands of Iranians lost their lives due to lack of medicine and medical equipment because of the illegal embargo, Shakespeare noted.

He underlined that until the US and the EU compensate losses they inflicted upon Iran; there would be no trust on them.

Former UK ambassador to Syria Peter Ford said that it is obvious the party, who pull out of the JCPOA, should take the first step to return to the deal.

He went on to say that the European Union and the European Troika, including the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), were expected to pave the way for returning the JCPOA to its correct path, but the current situation shows it is a farfetched hope, because a proposition by French President Emmanuel Macron on Saudi-Israeli presence in the JCPOA talks undermines his seriousness in this respect.

Kim Sengupta, Defence and Security Editor for The Independent, believes the US should take the first step to come back to the JCPOA in order to show that Washington is serious about returning to the agreement. To this end, the United States can pave the ground for the IMF’s loan to Iran and lift sanctions as well as facilitate medicine shipment to the Islamic country, he noted.

However, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei declared that the Islamic Republic will come back to its commitments under the JCPOA, when the US lifts all anti-Iran sanctions practically.