ZAGREB, February 15, 2020 – Croatia’s Foreign and European Affairs Minister Gordan Grlić Radman said on Friday that Iran should adhere to the nuclear agreement with world powers, which other signatories are trying to keep alive after the United States pulled out of it.
Iran has not been adhering to the provisions of the agreement, designed to prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb, after the USA withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and again imposed economic sanctions on Iran.
“The nuclear agreement offers the best framework for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and we need to adhere to it,” Grlić Radman told reporters after meeting with his Iranian counterpart in Munich.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif did not address the press after the meeting, held on the margins of the Munich Security Conference 2020.
“There is no alternative to peace, security is important and politicians have the responsibility… to relieve the suffering of civilians,” Croatia’s foreign minister said referring to the harsh sanctions imposed on Iran.
As a minister of the country currently chairing the EU, Grlić Radman told Zarif that “dialogue and building bridges is the most important,” adding that during the talks he advocated European values – the rule of law, human rights and the fight against corruption and for media freedoms. “Those values can be a paradigm for the world,” Grlić Radman said.
The nuclear agreement has been brought into question after US President Donald Trump unilaterally decided in 2018 that the USA would withdraw from the agreement, reimposing sanctions on Iran.
That decision has virtually isolated Tehran from the international financial system and Iran has lost its major oil buyers and sunk into deep recession and has stopped adhering to certain provisions of the nuclear agreement, accusing Europe of giving in to US pressure.
The Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2015 by the USA, Russia, China, Great Britain, France and the EU.
More news about relations between Croatia and Iran can be found in the Politics section.
