US not sole owner of nuke deal, says Iran

Iran said on Tuesday that the US is not the sole owner of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal to make decisions on it.

"The nuclear agreement belongs to the international community and to the countries which are involved in the agreement," said Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, reported Xinhua.

"The JCPOA (or the nuclear deal) was an important deal in which Russia was involved as a major party," he said, adding that "it belongs to Iran, Russia and other members of P5+1."

On January 12, the White House announced that US President Donald Trump was seeking from the European countries an overhaul of the landmark deal in the next 120 days, or he would pull his country out of the multilateral pact.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has warned against probable pullout of US from the 2015 landmark nuclear deal, saying that "If the deal collapses, they will surely regret it."

Rouhani reiterated that Iran would not be the first to walk away from the deal.

The JCPOA is an international agreement reached in Vienna on July 14, 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France plus Germany).

Based on the agreement, Iran agreed to scale back its nuclear activities to a considerable degree in return for the lift of international sanctions.

--IANS

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