BRUSSELS, July 28. /TASS/. The Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will soon meet at a ministerial level to discuss the future of the Iran nuclear deal. The date however has not yet been agreed, as follows from the chair’s statement following Sunday’s meeting of the Joint Commission of the JCPOA at the level of political directors. The meeting was chaired by Secretary General of the European External Action Service (EEAS) Helga Maria Schmid.

"It was agreed that a meeting of the Joint Commission at ministerial level would be convened in the near future," the statement says. "Participants reaffirmed their continued commitment to preserving the JCPOA. They recalled that both nuclear commitments and sanctions-lifting are essential parts of the agreement."

According to the statement, participants reiterated their commitments to continue discussions on sanctions-lifting at the expert level and reaffirmed "their strong support and collective responsibility for the nuclear projects (in particular Arak and Fordow) that are an essential part of the JCPOA in order to ensure the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear programme."

Tensions over Iran’s nuclear program exacerbated after Washington unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA on May 8, 2018 and slapped US economic sanctions on Iran’s oil exports. A year later, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that Tehran was scaling back some of its commitments under the JCPOA and called on other signatories to the deal to comply with the conditions of the agreement within two months. The JCPOA was signed between Iran, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (Russia, the United Kingdom, China, the United States and France) and Germany in 2015. Under the deal, Iran undertook to curb its nuclear activities and place them under total control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in exchange of abandonment of the sanctions imposed previously by the United Nations Security Council, the European Union and the United States over its nuclear program.

Iran pledged not to enrich uranium above the level of 3.67% for 15 years and maintain enriched uranium stockpiles at the level not exceeding 300 kg, as well as not to build new heavy-water reactors, not to accumulate heavy water and not to develop nuclear explosive devices.

On July 7, Teheran proceeded to the second stage of scaling down its commitments and announced it had exceeded the 3.67%-level of uranium enrichment. More to it, it promised to keep on reducing its commitment every 60 days if other participants in the deal were not committed to the deal. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed on July 1 and 8 that Iran has exceeded the 300 kg limit set for its stockpiles of low enriched uranium and had exceeded the 3.67% enrichment threshold.