EU’s Mogherini: Iran’s breaches of nuclear deal ‘reversible’

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini says Iran’s renewed uranium enrichment to levels beyond what is allowed under the 2015 nuclear deal is “reversible” and does not constitute a breach of the deal.

The 28 EU foreign ministers insist in a statement from their meeting in Brussels that recent Iranian actions do not necessarily condemn the whole agreement.

“We note that technically all the steps that have been taken — and that we regret have been taken — are reversible. So we hope and we invite Iran to reverse the steps,” says Mogherini.

“The deviations are not significant enough to think that Iran has definitively broken the agreement,” says Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell, who is in line to succeed Mogherini this fall.

The EU currently has few direct measures for offsetting US economic sanctions against Tehran that have crippled the country’s economy, and the bloc faces US threats to target any EU companies that attempt to trade with Iran.

Noting that Iran was “still a good year away” from potentially developing a nuclear bomb, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt says there was still a “small window to keep the deal alive.”

— Agencies