The German foreign minister says the European Union seeks to maintain the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, calling on the US not to link the multilateral accord to other unrelated issues.
Sigmar Gabriel made the comments ahead of a meeting with his counterparts from Iran, Britain and France and the EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, in Brussels on Thursday about the nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Gabriel, an outspoken critic of US President Donald Trump’s polices, said, “We should separate two things from each other: we want to preserve the nuclear deal with Iran… and the difficult role Iran has in the region.”
He also said Washington should separate the Iran deal from other issues, including the Islamic Republic’s Middle East strategy as well as its national missile program.
Earlier, Iranian Mohammad Javad Zarif sat down for bilateral talks with his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, ahead of the meeting with the top European diplomats.
During the meeting, Zarif stressed that all parties to the nuclear deal should remain committed to their obligations under the agreement, calling for a more active role on behalf of the European signatories.
Le Drian, for his part, underlined Paris’ determination to honor its obligations under the JCPOA.
The two sides also stressed the need for the establishment of stability and security in the Middle East and called for peaceful solutions to achieve that aim.
A day earlier, Zarif paid a visit to Moscow, where he discussed the JCPOA with his Russian opposite number, Sergei Lavrov.