JCPOA Does Not Need Any Addition, Mogherini Says

“We are we working on finding practical solutions. The agreement is complex enough, long enough, detailed enough. It does not need to be changed, modified or have any addition. Everything is already written there,” Mogherini responded to Tasnim's question at a press conference in Brussels on Tuesday after meeting with Iranian, British, French and German foreign ministers on the fate of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) a week after US President Donald Trump refused to remain in the deal.

In a speech from the White House last Tuesday, Trump accused Iran of sponsoring terrorism and seeking nukes before announcing the US withdrawal from 2015 agreement between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).

Tasnim asked the EU foreign policy chief at the press conference in Brussels whether she thinks it would be possible to reach a conclusion within the remaining time, whether it would be possible to have an extension of this time, what will the outcome of the negotiations be, and whether there will be provisions added as an attachment to the deal.

“We are working on finding practical solutions,” Mogherini responded. “The agreement is complex enough, long enough, detailed enough. It does not need to be changed, modified or have any addition. Everything is already written there.

“We simply committed to fully comply with all the commitments taken there, which means for the Iranian side the nuclear-related commitments, and from our side and from the side of the rest of the international community, in particular the commitments related to the economic benefits the Iranian people need to see as an outcome of their own implementation of the Iran deal.

“So, we are not talking about annexes or modifications of the agreement at all; we are talking about setting up concrete measures, concrete practical solutions to address these issues, which could take different forms depending on the different issues covered - but something very concrete, very practical and hopefully very operational and very quickly.

“About the timing, as I said, we have already started the work, actually even before today. Today the experts exchanged for many hours in a very productive manner and we will continue this work both at the Commission level with the Member States, starting tomorrow evening to share the state of play with all the 28 Member States' Heads of State or Government. Capitals in the European Union will obviously look at how to complement European mechanisms or solutions we could find. The speed of the process is and has to be fast. I cannot tell you two days, two weeks or more, but we talked about the need to do this exercise in the next few weeks.”