Europe rejects Iran’s ‘ultimatum’ but stands by nuclear agreement

Why in news:

  •       European powers denounced Iran’s threat to resume nuclear work but vowed to save a landmark deal with Tehran despite U.S. pressure.

Details:

  •       Iran said it would defylimits under the 2015 agreement, and threatened to go further if Europe, China and Russia fail to deliver sanctions relief within 60 days.
  •       Tehran says it is responding to unilateral U.S. sanctions imposed after President Donald Trump called a “horrible” deal, dealing a severe blow to the Iranian economy.

Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)

  •       It is informally called as ‘Iran nuclear deal’. It is multilateral nuclear deal signed between Iran and P5 +1 (five permanent members of United Nations Security Council- US, China, France, Russia, and UK), plus Germany and European Union (EU), in Vienna.
  •       The JCPOA is aimed at preventing Iran from building nuclear weapon, involved lifting of international sanctions in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear programme.
  •       This plan ensured that Iran will drastically reduce its uranium enriching capacity and levels, enriched stockpiles and centrifuges and will allow for stringent inspection and monitoring by international agencies including International International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
  •        In exchange for Iran compliance to deal, economic sanctions that had kept Iran away from international banking and the global oil trade were lifted.
  •     It allowed Iran to make business deals and also unfroze billions of dollars Iran had overseas before multilateral sanctions were imposed on Iran over its nuclear programme.

Why did Iran agree to the deal?

  •       It had been hit with devastating economic sanctions by the United Nations, United States and the European Union that are estimated to have cost it tens of billions of pounds a year in lost oil export revenues. Billions in overseas assets had also been frozen.

Impact on India

  •       Energy trade
  •       Implications in West Asia
  •       Chabahar port
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