Iran say nuclear deal with world powers worth preserving

The head of Iran’s nuclear agency says that the landmark 2015 deal between Tehran and world powers on his country’s atomic program is struggling since the unilateral US withdrawal, but is still worth preserving.

Ali Akbar Salehi tells delegates at a conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna that the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, has been “caught in a quasi-stalemate situation” since President Donald Trump pulled the US out in 2018.

The deal promises Iran economic incentives in exchange for limits on its nuclear program. The remaining world powers in the deal — France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia — have been struggling to offset re-imposed American sanctions.

Iran’s Vice President and Head of the Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi listens to a question during a joint news conference with European Union Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Monday, Nov. 26, 2018. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Iran has been steadily breaking restrictions outlined in the deal on the amount of uranium it can enrich, the purity it can enrich it to, and other limitations in order to pressure those countries to do more.

Salehi, speaking in a video address, says it’s of the “utmost importance” that those countries find a solution to resolve “the difficulties caused by the illegal withdrawal of the US from the deal.”

“There is still a broad agreement among the international community that the JCPOA should be preserved,” he says.

— AP