© AFP 2018 / HANS PUNZ / APA
"To be honest with you, we are not confident," the official said, speaking to reporters before the start of Friday's talks with representatives from Iran, Russia, China, the UK, France and Germany on how Tehran might mitigate the financial and economic impact of Washington's withdrawal from the JCPOA.
"We expect the (economic) package to be given to us by the end of May," the official noted, according to Reuters. "I'm sorry to say that we haven't seen Plan B yet. Plan B has just started to be figured out."
According to the official, European measures to encourage Tehran to remain committed to the nuclear deal would need to include guarantees concerning the continuation of Iranian oil exports, as well as guarantees about access to the SWIFT international bank payments system.
Earlier Friday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi confirmed that Tehran still had to make a decision on the JCPOA. "The European countries should tell us how they would be able to secure Iran's interests in the JCPOA in the absence of the United States and with the return of the country's sanctions," he said.
President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the United States out of the JCPOA on May 8 and outlined plans to reimpose sanctions that had been lifted under the nuclear deal. This week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promised the US would apply the "strongest [sanctions] in history" against Iran and force the country to struggle to "keep its economy alive."
The JCPOA was signed in 2015 by Iran, the US, Russia, China, France, the UK, Germany and the European Union. President Trump's decision to pull out of the deal was met with condemnation from the other signatories, which are concerned that the United States may be pushing the Middle East into a nuclear arms race.
Comment: In theory they may be the "strongest sanctions in history", but in order for them to be effective the ailing EU economies need to abide by them, but as became clear with the anti-Russia sanctions, they have little to benefit and a lot to lose from continuing to follow illogical US diktats:
- Netanyahu's Anti-Iran PowerPoint Moment as Trump Wavers and Europe Turns its Back
- Demented US foreign policy pushes Germany into mutually beneficial deals with China and Russia
- Europe ready to defy US economic sanctions on Iran
- Iran Protests Through the Prism of Geopolitics
Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Atlantic Trade War? How Trump Breaking Iran Deal Could Dismantle US Empire