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By Kamila Aliyeva

Iran welcomes deepening ties with the EU members in all spheres, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said at a meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Luxembourg Jean Asselborn.

In particular, Rouhani called on Luxembourg to expand ties in the banking and insurance sectors, the official news website of Iranian government reported.

“Nowadays, the key to economic cooperation lies in banking and insurance, and cooperation in these two fields can create a good basis for strengthening economic ties even more,” Rouhani said at the meeting in Tehran on February 14.

Elaborating on ways for expansion of economic ties with the Europe, Rouhani added that Iran and Europe have potential to cooperate in the fields of energy and transit.

Hassan Rouhani further touched upon Iran’s nuclear deal with the world powers inked in 2015 stressing that the Islamic Republic will keep its promises as far as the other sides of the nuclear accord honor their commitments.

“The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is an agreement drafted and signed with a win-win approach,” he said underlining the importance of commitment to this deal by all sides as any attempt to undermine the agreement might be seen by others as an inability to solve regional and international issues.

While talking about the post-JCPOA opportunities for the investment he said that “Iran can, from one side, supply a large part of Europe's energy, and be a very important transit route for connecting Europe to the Indian Ocean and East Asia from the other.”

Asselborn in his turn announced that an agreement aimed at deepening ties and cooperation between the central banks of Iran and Luxembourg was signed and finalized while other documents regarding important financial and investment issues were put on the agenda, adding that “the European Union believes in Tehran's significant and effective role in resolving regional issues.”

The talks on the Iranian nuclear issue began in 2004, as Western nations were accusing Tehran of developing a "secret military nuclear program. Since 2006, negotiations with Iran were led by the "six" of international mediators (the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany). A number of resolutions were adopted requiring Iran to stop enriching uranium with nuclear proliferation purposes. These resolutions were progressively accompanied by restrictive measures to persuade Iran to comply. In 2006-2010 the United Nations, the United States, and the European Union implemented several packages of sanctions against Iran.

Lengthy negotiations resulted in the adoption of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the fulfillment of which could completely remove previously lifted economic and financial sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council, the United States, and the European Union. The long-anticipated deal was achieved in Vienna on July 14, 2015, that committed Iran not to produce weapons-grade plutonium for 15 years, to keep no more than 300 kg of enriched uranium to 3.67 percent, and to convert nuclear facilities and use them exclusively for peaceful purposes.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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