Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s High Representative of for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, on Monday responded to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s presentation on Iran.
“What I have seen from the first reports is that Prime Minister Netanyahu has not put into question Iran's compliance with the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] commitments, meaning post-2015 nuclear commitments,” she said, asserting that an agreement was needed due to lack of trust between the sides.
“The JCPOA, the nuclear agreement, is not based on assumptions of good faith or trust - it is based on concrete commitments, verification mechanisms and a very strict monitoring of facts, done by the IAEA. The IAEA has published 10 reports, certifying that Iran has fully complied with its commitments,” continued Mogherini.
“And in any case, if any party and if any country has information of non-compliance, of any kind, it can and should address and channel this information to the proper, legitimate, recognized mechanisms, the IAEA and the Joint Commission [of the JCPOA] for the monitoring of the nuclear deal that I chair and that I convened just a couple of months ago. We have mechanisms in place to address eventual concerns.”
“Again, I have not seen from Prime Minister Netanyahu arguments for the moment on non-compliance, meaning violation by Iran of its nuclear commitments under the [nuclear] deal. And again, the deal was put in place exactly because there was no trust between the parties, otherwise we would not have required a nuclear deal to be put in place,” she concluded.
Netanyahu revealed intelligence from Iran's secret nuclear files earlier on Monday, noting that "Iran lied big time" when its leaders denied that the Islamic Republic had a program to develop nuclear weapons.
The Prime Minister noted that after it signed the nuclear deal in 2015, Iran intensified its efforts to hide its secret nuclear files. He also pointed out that “in 2017, Iran moved its nuclear weapons files to a highly secret location in Tehran".
Netanyahu addressed U.S. President Donald Trump's upcoming decision on whether to remain in the Iran nuclear deal or not and said that he believed that Trump would withdraw from the deal.
"I am sure he will do the right thing, the right thing for the United States, the right thing for Israel, and the right thing for the peace of the world."
Trump later responded to Netanyahu and said his speech "sends the right message" on Iran's nuclear program.
The president called the 2015 Iran nuclear deal a “horrible agreement for the United States” and added that Netanyahu's speech confirmed that he was "100% right" to criticize the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran."
However, Trump refused to say whether he would withdraw from the nuclear deal.
The president has set a deadline of May 12 for Europe to fix the flaws of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal.
