EU puts Iran nuclear deal on notice

The European signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran have triggered the agreement's dispute resolution process, following Tehran's latest step back from the pact.

Tehran has been gradually rolling back on its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) since the US reimposed sanctions when it pulled out of the deal in May 2018. Most recently, Iran said on 5 January that it would take a "fifth and final" step to reduce compliance with the deal by removing restrictions placed on the number of centrifuges installed at its two uranium enrichment sites in Natanz and Fordow.

"There will no longer be any restrictions on the number of centrifuges," Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said last week.

Today, the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the UK said they will jointly trigger the JCPOA's dispute mechanism, under which a joint commission of all the signatories — which also include Russia and China — has an initial 15 days to resolve the issue. Should that prove inconclusive, an independent element can be added to this process for a further 30-day period.

The three said they did this "in good faith with the overarching objective of preserving the JCPOA ... France, Germany and the UK once again express our commitment to the JCPOA and our determination to work with all participants to preserve it".

For all the actions Tehran has taken to step back from the JCPOA, it has not triggered the dispute mechanism. It has, however, repeatedly complained about European inaction to provide support since the US withdrawal, particularly regarding Iran's inability to sell its crude freely. US sanctions cut Iran's crude exports by 2mn b/d, but have fallen short of Washington's professed objective of bringing that to zero. China continues to import crude from Iran.

An EU-sponsored mechanism set up to bypass dollar-based transactions with Iran, the Instex exchange, has not been able to function effectively. Yesterday, Iran's foreign minister Zarif said the EU signatories have "bowed to US appeasement" and that they should "muster the courage" to fulfill their own obligations.

The US imposed more financial restrictions on Iran's economy last week, after a brief period when rhetoric threatened to escalate into war.

The European ministers today said: "Given recent events, it is all the more important that we do not add a nuclear proliferation crisis to the current escalation threatening the whole region."

By Ben Winkley