Iran’s Zarif writes letter to Mogherini on JCPOA

TEHRAN, May 15 (MNA) – Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif has written a letter to EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini on JCPOA following Trump’s pullout from the agreement. In his letter to the EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini, Zarif elaborated on the Islamic Republic’s stances regarding the Iran nuclear deal following the US withdrawal. The details of the letter have not been disclosed yet. Zarif’s letter to Mogherini follows another one to UN Secretary General António Guterres on May 10, in which the Iranian top diplomat denounced US unilateral measure to withdraw from the UNSC-approved agreement of July 2015. In the letter to the UN chief, Zarif slammed the United States for persistently violating the terms of the agreement almost from its inception, even preventing other JCPOA Participants from fully performing their obligations; “those violations included systematic failures, late, lackluster, defective, superficial and ineffective nominal implementation, undue delays, new sanctions and designations, derogatory anti-JCPOA statements by senior officials,” Zarif added. He stressed that the US must be held accountable for the consequences of its reckless and wrongful act that flies in the face of the United Nations Charter and international law. Meanwhile, Zarif has arrived in Brussels to discuss the possibility of keeping the nuclear deal in place with the E3 foreign ministers - Britain, Germany and France. Iran says it will stay in the agreement as long as the European signatories to JCPOA give solid guarantees that Iran's interests would continue to be met in the face of US sanctions.