TEHRAN, July 5 (Xinhua) -- The proposal package offered by the European Union (EU) does not secure Iran's interests in the 2015 international nuclear deal, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said on Thursday.
"Unfortunately, in the proposed package, there is no practical measure and specific strategy for cooperation," Rouhani said in a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to the official IRNA news agency.
The package encompasses "a number of generalities about EU commitments which have also been issued before," he said.
The Iranian president said that "we expected a vivid plan from the three European countries" of Germany, France and Britain, two months after the U.S. pulled out the deal, known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
For her part, Merkel confirmed that the EU package contains some principles and generalities, stressing that the talks should continue over the details.
"We all know that we want to stay in the nuclear deal, and we believe that we should keep talks in a quite atmosphere," she stressed.
No details are available about the EU proposals over their support on Iran's interests in the deal.
Rouhani is on an official visit to Austria following a two-day stay in Switzerland which started on Monday.
His visit to the two European countries mainly aimed at discussing the fate of Iranian nuclear deal amidst the U.S. withdrawal from the accord and threats to abort it.
Rouhani has urged the European signatories to the JCPOA to take "practical and tangible measures" to protect Iranian interests after the U.S. pullout.
Iran signed the landmark nuclear deal with the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany in 2015 to halt its nuclear weapons program in exchange for sanctions relief.
However, U.S. President Donald Trump decided on May 8 to quit the Iranian nuclear deal and vowed to re-impose sanctions, including oil embargo, on Tehran.
