Any Iranian hopes of Europe salvaging the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) are quickly fading nearly a year after the United States reneged on the nuclear deal between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on April 3 had some harsh words for Europe in an interview with Khamenei.ir, the official website of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“The Europeans must know that they cannot drop their responsibilities with a few statements or unimplemented plans,” Zarif said. “Our responsibility as a diplomatic agency is to pursue the work of the Europeans, warn them, bring pressure on them that they are responsible for acting upon their commitments, but we must never have hope in them.” 

In return for Iran continuing to comply with the nuclear deal, which the International Atomic Energy Agency has verified numerous times, Europe has established a special purpose vehicle called INSTEX, short for Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges, to facilitate trade between Iran and the European Union. Given Zarif’s reference to “unimplemented plans,” it appears INSTEX has had little effect in circumventing US sanctions reimposed as a result of President Donald Trump withdrawing from the JCPOA.

During the short interview, Zarif said that the Europeans always looked at the JCPOA as an “achievement, … but certainly they did not have the ability to stand up against American sanctions.” He continued, “They made efforts, but their efforts were not enough.… [This] demonstrated that the Europeans lacked the willingness to pay a cost in an area in which they themselves said was of strategic importance for them.”