The assassination of an Iranian scientist \u201cputs difficulties\u201d on the road to revive the Iran nuclear deal, the EU\u2019s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell told Euronews.<\/p>\n
There had been hope that with the arrival of the US President-elect Joseph Biden in the White House, the Iran nuclear deal, which was abandoned by incumbent US President Donald Trump, could be revived. However, there are fears the assassination could derail these ambitions.<\/p>\n
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of the Iranian Defense Ministry\u2019s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, was targeted in a multi-pronged terrorist attack by a number of assailants in Absard town of Tehran Province\u2019s Damavand County on November 27.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s clear it\u2019s not going to help,\u201d Borrell told Euronews.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, whoever did it certainly didn\u2019t do it to facilitate dialogue. Certainly there are people who have an interest in this agreement not surviving. Europe has been very interested in its survival. I have had to keep it alive, hibernating a little, but it hasn\u2019t died. And now we also have to see what the Iranians think, because the Iranians can rightly feel cheated. And maybe they are the ones who won\u2019t want to play with the same cards again. But we\u2019ll have to wait,\u201d the EU\u2019s foreign affairs chief said.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the US president-elect Biden for the first time addressed the assassination of the Iranian scientist.<\/p>\n
He told CNN that it was \u201chard to tell how much\u201d the recent assassination of the scientist would complicate his dealings with Tehran.<\/p>\n
Biden, who reaffirmed his desire to rejoin the nuclear agreement, slammed Trump\u2019s policy toward Iran and his decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal.<\/p>\n
Trump unilaterally pulled Washington out of the JCPOA in May 2018, and unleashed the \u201ctoughest ever\u201d sanctions against the Islamic Republic in defiance of global criticism, Press TV wrote.<\/p>\n
Since the exit, Washington has been attempting to prevent the remaining signatories \u2013 Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany \u2013 from abiding by their commitments and thus kill the historic agreement, which is widely viewed as a fruit of international diplomacy.<\/p>\n
Iran remained fully compliant with the JCPOA for an entire year, waiting for the co-signatories to fulfill their end of the bargain by offsetting the impacts of American bans on the Iranian economy.<\/p>\n
But as the European parties failed to do so, the Islamic Republic moved in May 2019 to suspend its JCPOA commitments under Articles 26 and 36 of the deal that cover Tehran\u2019s legal rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The assassination of an Iranian scientist \u201cputs difficulties\u201d on the road to revive the Iran nuclear deal, the EU\u2019s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell told Euronews. There had been hope that with the arrival of the US President-elect Joseph Biden in the White House, the Iran nuclear deal, which was abandoned by incumbent US President […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,1,6],"tags":[118,1093,1069,966,474,85,290,165,1474,639,178,1453,84,642,27,638],"yoast_head":"\n