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EU and Iran foreign ministers meet in support of nuclear deal UK, Germany and France urge US not to tear up Iran nuclear deal
(about 3 hours later)
European powers are meeting the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in Brussels to reiterate their support for the Iran nuclear deal, but are likely to urge Iran to consider supplementing the deal to cover ballistic missiles. Washington’s closest allies have sent a carefully timed warning to Donald Trump not to tear up the Iran nuclear deal, saying it is essential for international security, and no better alternative has been suggested by the White House.
Thursday’s event is the first direct meeting between the EU and a senior Iranian leadership figure since the fortnight-long Iranian street protests. The EU leadership will walk a delicate tightrope in condemning the Iranian government crackdown on the protesters, while insisting its leaders remain reliable partners in complying with the nuclear deal signed in 2015. At a meeting in Brussels attended by the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, the three EU signatories to the deal, insisted that Iran was respecting the agreement signed in 2015.
The display of resolve came before a decision by the US president, expected on Friday, on whether to continue to sign a waiver to prevent the reimposition of economic sanctions against Iran. Tehran has warned that any failure to sign the waiver would lead to the deal’s collapse, and the speedy restart of uranium enrichment.
The EU’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, said the deal, denounced by Trump as the worst ever made, had in reality “made the world safer and prevented a potential nuclear arms race in the region”.
She also said any doubts the EU harboured over Iran’s development of ballistic missiles, or its overall policy of interference across the Middle East, was separate to the nuclear deal – also known as the JCPOA.
Both France and Britain, in part to remain in alliance with the US, have said Iran needs to sign fresh agreements over both issues. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has spoken of supplementing the nuclear deal.
Zarif did not join the post-meeting press conference but tweeted: “Strong consensus in Brussels today: 1) Iran is complying with #JCPOA, 2) Iranian people have every right to all its dividends, 3) Any move that undermines JCPOA is unacceptable. E3 and EU fully aware that Iran’s continued compliance conditioned on full compliance by the US.“
The German foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, said: “We want to protect the JCPOA against every possible undermining decision whatever that may come. It would send a very dangerous signal to the rest of the world if the only agreement that prevents the proliferation of nuclear weapons was negatively effected.”
The French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said: “There is no indication today that could call into doubt Iranian respect of the agreement.”
Boris Johnson, Britain’s foreign secretary, said: “I don’t think anybody has so far produced a better alternative” to the agreement.
He said it was “incumbent on those who oppose the JCPOA to come up with that better solution because we have not seen it so far. We greatly value the JCPOA, the nuclear deal with Iran, we think it is a considerable diplomatic accomplishment. It’s a way of stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and Iran is in compliance with this agreement, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.”
The genesis of Trump’s particular antipathy to Iran is hard to pin down.  Before entering office he had been sceptical of Iran’s regional rival, Saudi Arabia. But during the 2016 election campaign all his closest foreign policy advisors, such as Michael Flynn, shared a worldview that portrays Iran as an uniquely malign actor in the Middle East and beyond. After the election, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were successful in capturing the ear of Trump and his son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner.The genesis of Trump’s particular antipathy to Iran is hard to pin down.  Before entering office he had been sceptical of Iran’s regional rival, Saudi Arabia. But during the 2016 election campaign all his closest foreign policy advisors, such as Michael Flynn, shared a worldview that portrays Iran as an uniquely malign actor in the Middle East and beyond. After the election, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were successful in capturing the ear of Trump and his son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner.
The Brussels meeting is being held on the eve of a deadline for the US president to decide whether to reimpose sanctions suspended at the time of the deal. Donald Trump could reimpose sanctions either immediately or at some stated future date. On a bilateral basis Johnson raised with Zarif the issue of British dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been held in a Tehran jail for two years after being found guilty of espionage.
The US state department said it expected a US decision on Friday, with some Republicans calling for reimposed sanctions as a way of encouraging the Iranian protesters fed up with the economic failures of their government. Johnson raised her plight on a visit to Tehran before Christmas, but no further progress was reported, and it is likely that the recent Iran-wide street protects – which hardliners blame on foreign including UK interference – may not have helped her chances of early release.
Others, including the British, are advising that reimposed sanctions would play into the hands of hardliners in Tehran, who would then be able to blame Washington for Iran’s economic difficulties. Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, this week said the EU “must be prepared for the US possibly pulling out” of the agreement. Washington has been more forthright than Europe in supporting the protests and implying that regime change is a realistic possibility. The EU has focused on ensuring that the right to protest is defended.
Most analysts are predicting that Trump will not support reimposing sanctions, but the street protests have thrown a wildcard into the president’s already unpredictable thinking, making the Brussels meeting an important counterweight. Discussing Iran’s wider behaviour, Le Drian reiterated that European governments were open to pressing Iran on its missile programme and regional activities but that this must happen separately from the nuclear accord.
The former UK foreign secretary Jack Straw, speaking before the Brussels meeting, accused the US of “imperialism” and said that if Trump refused to renew the sanctions waivers, Europe could respond by instructing EU-based companies not to cooperate with the US, a potential means of protecting them from the threat of US sanctions. French officials have said they would consider sanctions if Iran pushes ahead with its missile programme. However, EU sanctions must be agreed unanimously by all member states, and unlike in the US, no preparation for such sanctions have been made.
Straw, who has just returned from meetings in Iran, said the west was not delivering its side of the Iran bargain “principally because of sanctions by the US that have nothing to do with the nuclear deal but do have an effect on banks”. The former UK foreign secretary Jack Straw has suggested the EU consider legislation to protect EU companies from US sanctions if Washington reimposed sanctions over the deal.
He said if Trump pressed ahead and dropped the deal, the EU had to look at “the example of Margaret Thatcher in the 80s who, faced by similar US economic imperialism over a BP deal with Russia, passed legislation prohibiting UK entities from cooperating with the US”. He said “that may have to happen here”, but admitted the proposal was tricky.
The Iranian leadership told Straw on his visit that the protests reflected a belief among the younger generation that they were not benefiting from the nuclear deal. He said the protests had led to a “pretty high degree of questioning about where Iran goes. There is a much bigger free political space in Iran than people imagine. It is much bigger than most countries in the Gulf.”
The meeting is being attended by the EU’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, the UK foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, and his German and French counterparts, Sigmar Gabriel and Jean-Yves Le Drian. The UK, France and Germany were the three European powers at the heart of the nuclear deal negotiated in 2015. Johnson this week said the Iranian deal remained useful and valid, and urged the US not to throw it away.
But both Johnson and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, have been clear in recent days that their emphatic support for the nuclear deal, and Iran’s compliance with its specific terms, does not extend to endorsement of Iranian behaviour either across the Middle East or domestically.
Macron has been increasingly arguing, notably in a new year’s speech to diplomats last week, that Iran’s deal may have to be supplemented by a ballistic missiles agreement and a framework agreement on Iran’s broader foreign policy.
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Majid Takht-e Ravanchi, said the US would lose more than Iran if it pulled out of the deal, adding that Iran’s own response would be swift. He emphasised the deal could not be reopened to include new issues. He said: “We have openly told them not to think about negotiations on our defence-related issues and that regional issues are not suitable to be discussed here.”
Zarif has defended Iran’s missile programme, saying: “We have honed missiles as an effective means of deterrence. Our conscious decision to focus on precision rather than range has afforded us the capability to strike back with pinpoint accuracy. Nuclear weapons do not need to be precise – conventional warheads, however, do.”