UK’s Boris Johnson Calls for Upholding JCPOA

EghtesadOnline: Boris Johnson, the leading candidate to replace British Prime Minister Theresa May, called on Iran to fully adhere to the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on its nuclear program, underlining the accord’s crucial role in preserving relations between Tehran and the European Union.

News ID: ۷۴۷۷۷۵

06 July 2019

In a recent interview with Reuters, he said, “I would urge again the Iranian government to think very, very hard about scrapping the JCPOA and breaching their commitments on the Iran nuclear deal.”

Johnson stressed that JCPOA has been a good guarantor of stability in relations, certainly with the EU and with America.

“I think they should stick with it and I think it would be a great mistake now for Iran to abandon that approach of restraint and go for enrichment of nuclear materials. I think that would be a serious error,” Financial Tribune quoted him as saying.

Tehran recently announced that it had surpassed the cap set in the deal on its stockpile of enriched uranium, stressing that it will continue reducing its commitment to agreement unless the remaining parties come up with effective solutions to make up for economic restrictions caused by the US pullout.

When asked if he would move closer to the US position on Iran, Johnson said, “I think what is certainly the case is that the JCPOA is looking increasingly frail and we do have to think of ways of constraining Iran’s [allegedly] disruptive behavior in the region but I continue to believe that engaging with Iran and persuading Iran not to go forward with a nuclear weapons program is the right way forward for our country and for the region.”

Tehran says its nuclear activities are exclusively for civilian applications such as power generation and production of medical isotopes, and have never been geared toward development of nuclear weapons.