The European Union will continue nuclear talks with Iran regardless of the recent execution of a counterrevolutionary figure in Iran, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell says.

Speaking at a news conference in Berlin on Monday, the top EU diplomat added that the meeting of the Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 multilateral nuclear agreement signed between Iran and major world powers, will be held in Vienna, Austria, this week as planned before.
"I don't think we have to change our schedule and our work in order to keep the JCPOA alive. We will continue working for it," he added.
The next round of the JCPOA Joint Commission meeting will be held on Wednesday via video-conferencing at the level of deputy foreign ministers and political directors.

US President Donald Trump, a hawkish critic of the landmark nuclear deal, unilaterally withdrew Washington from the agreement in May 2018, and unleashed the �toughest ever� sanctions against the Islamic Republic in defiance of global criticism.

Following its much-criticized exit, Washington has been attempting to prevent the remaining signatories from abiding by their commitments and thus kill the historic agreement, which is widely viewed as a fruit of international diplomacy.

On December 8, Borrell said the United States needs to rejoin the JCPOA, commending the multilateral agreement for perfectly exemplifying a successful diplomatic strategy.


"We need to find a way for the US to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, and for Iran to come back into full compliance. The nuclear deal is still assessed as a landmark of successful diplomacy ... We are proud of it as the biggest success of our diplomatic capacity," Borrell told a GLOBSEC webinar.

The United Kingdom, France and Germany have reaffirmed their support for the JCPOA as a �key achievement� of international diplomacy, welcoming statements by the US president-elect, Joe Biden, concerning a return to the multilateral agreement.

In a statement�last week, the three signatories to the JCPOA said they had �worked tirelessly� to preserve the deal, calling it �a key achievement of multilateral diplomacy and the global non-proliferation architecture.�
Borrell further pointed to a decision made by EU member states to postpone a major three-day forum on business between Iran and Europe, which was scheduled to kick off on Monday, in the wake of the execution of Rouhollah Zam and said, "The member states of the EU decided not to participate [�] and this meeting has been canceled. This will not take place under current circumstances."
Zam was hanged on Saturday after Iran�s Supreme Court affirmed his conviction on the basis of spreading corruption on earth among other charges, which bought him a death sentence from�the Islamic Revolution Court back in June.

He was also convicted of committing offenses against the country�s internal and external security, spreading lies, abetting economic disruption, spying for the intelligence services of France and one of the regional states, cooperating with the hostile US government against the Islamic Republic, participating in propaganda activities against the Islamic establishment on behalf of counterrevolutionary groups, fueling violence during the 2017 riots, insulting the sanctities of Islam and acquiring illegitimate wealth.

Iran on Sunday summoned French and German ambassadors to Tehran to protest statements made by their respective countries on the execution of Zam.

Iran�s President Hassan Rouhani on Monday slammed certain European countries for making interventionist remarks on the execution, saying their apparent sensitivity on this issue amounts to interference in Iran�s internal affairs.

�We have death sentence in our law and some people are executed. Why they show so much sensitivity over one person? This does not have a good meaning and has an interventionist undertone,� Rouhani said in a press conference in the presence of domestic and foreign correspondents.