EU’s Mogherini welcomes any progress beyond preserving Iran’s nuclear deal

The European Union will continue working to preserve world powers’ 2015 nuclear deal with Iran but would welcome any progress beyond it, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on Friday.

“My role...is to preserve the full implementation of the existing agreements. Again if something else can be built on it, this would be welcomed and accompanied by the European Union,” Mogherini told reporters during a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Helsinki.

The deal has been in jeopardy since the United States withdrew from it last year and reimposed tough economic sanctions on Iran, seeking to push Tehran into wider security concessions including curbs on its ballistic missile program.

New hope of unblocking the political impasse emerged after Iran’s foreign minister made a flying visit for talks with host France at the G7 summit in Biarritz last Sunday.

“If this new momentum is real, this can build on the work that we have been doing for years,” Mogherini said, referring to the existing treaty with Iran, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

The 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and international powers aimed to curb Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of many international sanctions on Tehran.

Mogherini declined to answer directly when asked if the United States now demanded that Iran does more than just going back in line with the existing deal’s commitments.

“Our work is to continue to ensure that there is full compliance from the Iranian side to its nuclear commitments,” she said.