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TEHRAN, May 15 - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says all countries, particularly member states of the European Union, must stand up to the United States' "illegal and illogical" move to withdraw from a key nuclear agreement Tehran signed with major world powers in 2015.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - "Iran can stay in the JCPOA (the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) only if it fully benefits from it," Rouhani said while receiving the credentials of Estonia's accredited Ambassador to Tehran Marin Mõttus on Tuesday.
He warned that in an "illogical and illegal" move, the US seeks to apply its domestic laws to other parts of the world.
US President Donald Trump announced on May 8 that Washington was walking away from the JCPOA, which was reached between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- the US, Britain, France, Russia and China -- plus Germany.
Trump also said he would reinstate US nuclear sanctions on Iran and impose "the highest level" of economic bans on the Islamic Republic.
Iran has said it would remain in the JCPOA for now, pending negotiations with the other signatories in the coming weeks before making a final decision on its future role in the agreement. Tehran wants the Europeans to give it clear-cut guarantees about fulfilling their obligations if it remains in the accord.
In a letter written to the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on May 10, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the US president's "unilateral and unlawful" decision to withdraw from the JCPOA and to re-impose nuclear-related sanctions shows "a complete disregard for international law."
"These acts constitute a complete disregard for international law and the United Nations Charter, undermine the principle of peaceful settlement of disputes, endanger multilateralism and its institutions, indicate a regress to the failed and disastrous era of unilateralism, and encourage intransigence and illegality," Zarif said in the letter published on Monday on the website of the Iranian Foreign Ministry.
Zarif launched a diplomatic tour early on Sunday designed to try and rescue the nuclear deal. He began the visit on President Rouhani's order to sound out Europe and other parties to the JCPOA about the possibility of keeping the deal in place.
The Iranian foreign minister held talks with his Chinese and Russian counterparts Wang Yi and Sergei Lavrov, respectively, in Beijing and Moscow over the past two days.
In a meeting with the Chinese foreign minister, Zarif said he seeks a "clearer image" of the future of the key nuclear agreement after the US withdrawal.
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