ANALYSIS - Every Next Step Of Iran To Unravel JCPOA Will Only Hamper EU Bids To Seek Sanctions Relief

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 05th September, 2019) Every next step of Iran toward reducing its obligations under the nuclear deal, especially those putting the country closer to the previous uranium enrichment level, will only make it harder for the European Union to meet Tehran's justified demands and seek Washington's sanctions relief, experts told Sputnik.

On Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced that Tehran would embark on the third stage of scaling back its nuclear commitments on September 6. The move will include abandoning research and development commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), including those concerning new types of centrifuges.

The Islamic republic has however stressed that this step just as the previous ones will be reversible, and it will return to the implementation of the deal once EU signatories to the accord ensure Iran's interests under the agreement amid Washington's reinstated sanctions.

Iran's move, meanwhile, comes as Europe seems to ultimately show determination to salvage the deal, with French President Emmanuel Macron seeking to lead the efforts. Macron, in particular, earlier stressed the need to soften the effect of US sanctions on Tehran or create a compensation system to improve the living conditions of Iranians.

Paris has even reportedly proposed offering a $15 billion credit line to Tehran so that the country could use hard Currency bypassing US sanctions. Though Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that the tranche could facilitate Iran's return to the JCPOA, media later claimed that Tehran had rejected the offer, saying that it will only stop scrapping its obligations under the deal if it sells as much oil as it used to before Washington's sanctions.

COMPLICATING EU'S BALANCING BETWEEN US, IRAN

Though all experts approached by Sputnik agree that Iran had no other choice but to go ahead with discontinuing its obligations amid the unabating US sanctions pressure, they suggest that this yet another bold move by Tehran will only complicate efforts of Europe to finally satisfy Iran's demands.

"Should Tehran take this [third retaliatory] step it will also make it even harder going forward for the EU to meet Iran's demands," Miles Pomper, a senior fellow in the Washington DC office of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Middlebury Institute, told Sputnik.

According to Pomper, any drift toward returning to the pre-JCPOA realias, especially the 20 percent uranium enrichment level, an option that Iranian officials earlier have not ruled out, may dissuade Europe from seeking US pressure relief.

"Moving to 20% enriched uranium would be a far more provocative move than any of the other recent steps Tehran has taken ... It would exacerbate Europe's dilemma in trying to resolve what is essentially a US-Iran standoff. It could well be considered a significant step towards making a bomb. The real obstacle for Iran to produce a bomb is getting enough weapon-grade uranium (80-90% enriched). And the vast majority (more than 90%) of the work involved is enriching natural uranium (less than 1% of the chain reacting isotope Uranium-235) to 20% enriched.

It takes very little time and working centrifuges to move from 20% enriched to 80 or 90% enriched," he clarified.

ECONOMY AT HEART OF IRAN'S MOVES

Yet, experts suggest that it is economic rationale that pushes Iran to send strong signals to the European JCPOA signatories, rather than wish to acquire nuclear weapons.

"Iran is not in any way or form moving to producing a nuclear weapon, whether the deal exists or not," Mohammad Marandi, a professor at University of Tehran, told Sputnik.

Marandi believes that "Iran was the only side that was fully implementing the deal" after US President Donald Trump tore the agreement apart and "Europeans, despite promises to come up with the solution within weeks, did nothing."

The only thing that Tehran wants is to make Europe deliver on its promises, according to Marandi.

"This is the normalization of trade, ignoring maximum pressure policy of the United States that means standing up against the US economic warfare, which Iranian officials consider economic terrorism. If Europeans protect their companies that want to do trade with Iran, want to see Iranian oil ... it can bring an end to Iran's measures in reducing obligations under the nuclear deal," the expert argued.

Marc Finaud, the head of Arms Proliferation at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, in turn, noted that Europe indeed failed to live up to the promise to continue trade with Tehran, with its newly created trading mechanism proved to be ineffective too.

"The EU has put into place a mechanism called INSTEX to protect the companies trading with Iran in humanitarian goods, but this is seen by Tehran as insufficient because oil exports are more strategic for the country," Finaud told Sputnik.

Pomper agreed that since "the Iranian economy is clearly in dire straits," any measures that would it and provided extra funds "would be of interest to Tehran, whether that comes in the form of permitting oil sales or cash payments."

'IT'S EITHER THIS DEAL OR NO DEAL'

Reflecting on whether renegotiating the Iran nuclear deal - offered by Washington but rejected by Tehran - could be a solution, experts disagreed in their projections.

"There is zero change that Iran will accept renegotiating the nuclear deal. It's either this deal or no deal," Marandi said.

Pomper, in contrast, believes that "there is a very poor chance that the JCPOA will survive without renegotiating."

"Even if Iran were able to hold out until after the US presidential elections next year, I think even a Democratic administration would not be able to return to the prior status quo," he said.

On the first anniversary of the US unilateral pullout from the 2015 Iran unclear deal on May 8, Tehran announced that it would start abandoning some parts of its nuclear obligations every 60 days unless European signatories to the deal ensured Iran's interests under the agreement amid Washington's reinstated sanctions.

On Wednesday, Tehran recalled that the JCPOA signatures would now have another two months to prevent it from embarking on the fourth stage of scrapping the deal.