Iranian President Hassan Rowhani on Wednesday expressed his ongoing hope that international cooperation could lead to the successful implementation of the nuclear deal signed in 2015.
The nuclear agreement symbolizes the value of multilateral deals, said Rowhani while marking the fifth anniversary of the pact.
“We therefore hope that such international values won’t be damaged by U.S. policy and that the signatories can implement the deal after all.”
He blamed the deal’s current fragility as being a conspiracy by the “vicious triangle” Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and Israel, to provoke Iran to withdraw so they could blame Tehran for its failure.
The nuclear agreement, known as the JCPOA, was intended to enable Iran to have a civilian nuclear programme, while preventing nuclear weapons, in exchange for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions.
The deal began to fray in 2018 as President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. and re-imposed sanctions.
Iran then began violating many of the agreements made in 2015.
Since then, the agreement has been on the brink of failure, with the remaining signatories – China, France, Britain, Russia and Germany, sticking with it, though they cannot implement the economic part of the deal with the U.S.
Since 2019, Iran has enriched more uranium than allowed under the deal, as well as exceeded the level of enrichment permitted.
Rowhani said that Tehran would immediately respect the conditions laid out by the deal again as soon as the other parties did so first.
