TEHRAN – Chairman of the Majlis Nuclear Committee Mojtaba Zonnour said on Monday that Iran will mull over leaving the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in the event the European parties to the nuclear deal fail to salvage the pact before the 60-day deadline set by Iran.

Zonnour also said Europe has no will to preserve the nuclear pact and pay the price for such action, Mehr reported.

He maintained that in such circumstances, Iran would increase uranium enrichment to whatever percentage necessary for peaceful purposes, and bring the Arak reactor back on stream.

“We could also stop the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol and reconsider the level of our cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),” the MP stated.

“The volume of our economic transactions with Europe at best is $20 billion in a year, whereas the volume of economic transactions between Europe and the U.S. is something between $900-1,000 billion. Of course, Europe would not sacrifice $1,000 billion for $20 billion,” he said.

Zonnour argued that maintaining the status quo with regard to the 2015 deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), benefits Europe because “they only want to control Iran, and make sure that we won’t gain anything from the agreement.”

On May 8, exactly a year after U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, Iran revealed countermeasures to the move, giving the other remaining parties to the JCPOA 60 days to comply with their commitments, particularly those regarding Iran’s economic interests in the banking and energy sectors, before reducing portions of its own commitments to the agreement stage by stage.

Iran argues that its decision to reduce commitments to the JCPOA, given the current status of the deal, is within its rights under the agreement.

MH/PA