LONDON: European leaders vowed to stand by the Iran nuclear deal on Thursday as US President Donald Trump weighs bringing back sanctions against Tehran.
Speaking after ministers from Britain, France, Germany and Iran met in Brussels, the EU’s diplomatic leader Federica Mogherini insisted that the pact had effectively deterred Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“It is delivering on its main goal which means keeping the Iranian nuclear program in check and under close surveillance,” she said.
Despite the show of optimism for the 2015 deal, which lifted sanctions against Iran in return for curbs on the country’s nuclear program, the US president has threatened to follow through with a campaign promise to shred the agreement.
A Friday deadline looms for Trump to renew his support for the sanctions waiver. Top advisers have appealed to the president to adhere to the pact.
Senior officials told AP and AFP they expected Trump to extend relief from the nuclear-related sanctions on Iran on Friday. He is also expected to impose fresh measures against Iran over human rights abuses and support for foreign extremist groups.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior Iran analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said that while it was likely Trump would remain in the nuclear agreement, it was possible that Washington would pursue different avenues to squeeze Tehran.
“Ultimately the president will waive the nuclear sanctions to remain party to the core tenants of the nuclear deal but that doesn’t preclude the US from ramping up this non nuclear pressure,” Ben Taleblu said.
“The Europeans have wrongly interpreted American enforcement of the deal as an attempt to unravel it.”
Following the meetings in Brussels on Thursday with Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, European leaders made thinly veiled appeals to Trump to respect the deal.
“The unity of the international community is essential to preserve a deal that is working,” Mogherini said.
Marc Martinez, an independent country risk analyst based in Dubai, said Trump’s public misgivings about the nuclear pact serve Washington’s interests.
“The uncertainty surrounding the US position is already hurting badly the revival of the Iranian economy,” he said.
However, Trump was unlikely to scrap the deal altogether because the impact on US diplomatic credibility would be “unfathomable,” Martinez told Arab News.
The US decision about whether to reinstate sanctions comes amid large protests against the Iranian regime.
On Wednesday night, the White House issued a statement insisting the “Iranian dictatorship” was “wasting resources on military adventurism.”
Critics of the deal in the Arab Gulf and the West say that it does nothing to address Iran’s ballistic missile program and aggressive foreign policies in Middle East conflicts such as Yemen and Syria.
The Europeans say these issues should be kept separate from the nuclear deal, but Mogherini claimed these concerns were raised with Zarif.
She said the leaders also brought up the anti-government protests that killed more than 20 people when security forces responded with violence.
The EU has condemned the “unacceptable loss of human lives” in the protests and stressed that peaceful protest and freedom of expression are “fundamental rights.”
But the main focus on Thursday was to display a united front in support of the nuclear deal despite Iran’s behavior.
France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said there was “no alternative” to the “essential” deal.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson agreed, saying the 2015 pact is “a crucial agreement that makes the world safer.”
UN inspectors have said on nine occasions that Iran is complying with the deal, most recently in November.
Iran has warned that if the US walks away from the agreement, it is ready to give an “appropriate and heavy response.”
“Iran’s continued compliance conditioned on full compliance by the US,” Zarif said on Twitter after the meeting.
He said there was a “strong consensus in Brussels today” that Iran was complying with the deal and that “any move that undermines (the agreement) is unacceptable.”
US Congress is working on a way to punish Iran for the ballistic missile program and its interference in Arab countries like Yemen and Syria.
Johnson added that to build global support for the deal it was important that “Iran should be able to show that it is a good neighbor in the region” and show what it can do to help solve the Yemen crisis.
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel indicated that Iran had agreed to open talks about regional issues, starting with Yemen.
Officials from the world powers involved in the deal meet every three to four months to assess how it is being implemented.
The pact is monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency and is underpinned on the US side by a presidential waiver of nuclear-related sanctions on Iran’s central bank.