Iran: Europe must protect trade to save nuclear deal

Europe, dismayed by US withdrawal, sees accord as best chance for peace

TEHERAN — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has set out a series of conditions for European powers if they want Teheran to stay in a nuclear deal after the US exit, including steps to safeguard trade and a guarantee for Iranian oil sales.

US President Donald Trump pulled out earlier this month from the 2015 nuclear deal that lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs to its nuclear program, calling it deeply flawed. European powers see the international accord as the best chance of stopping Teheran developing a nuclear weapon and have intensified efforts to salvage it.

“European banks should safeguard trade with the Islamic Republic. We do not want to start a fight with these three countries (France, Germany and Britain), but we don’t trust them either,” Khamenei said on Wednesday, according to his official website.

He also stipulated European powers must protect Iranian oil sales from US plans to scuttle them by reimposing global sanctions on Teheran, and to continue buying Iranian crude.

He further said Britain, France and Germany must pledge they would not seek negotiations on Iran’s ballistic missile program and on its regional activities, both of which were not covered by the nuclear pact but are now demanded by Washington.

Khamenei said that over the past two years the United States “has repeatedly violated” the nuclear deal but the Europeans had remained silent. He asked Europe to “make up for that silence” and to “stand up against (new) US sanctions”.

He warned that if the Europeans did not meet these demands, Iran would resume its enrichment of uranium.

Khamenei also launched a fresh broadside at Washington’s rejection of the nuclear accord, saying the US withdrawal showed the Islamic Republic could not deal with a country that did not abide by its commitments.

In his first public remarks since US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded Iran make sweeping policy changes, Khamenei expressed revulsion at what he suggested was the casual and boastful way the Trump administration had abandoned the accord.

“The Islamic Republic cannot deal with a government that easily violates an international treaty, withdraws its signature and in a theatrical show brags about its withdrawal on television,” he said.

‘Strongest sanctions’

Pompeo on Monday threatened Iran with “the strongest sanctions in history” if it did not scale back regional activities such as support for armed groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen as well as the government side in Syria’s civil war.

“Iran was committed to the deal. They (the US government) have no excuse. The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly verified Iran’s commitment. But you see they easily cancel this international agreement,” Khamenei said.

France, one of several European powers dismayed by the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal, said Washington’s method of piling more sanctions on Teheran would reinforce the country’s dominant hardliners who opposed the pact in the first place.

And German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton that Europe remained “very, very united” in supporting the deal because it feared a proliferation of atomic weapons on its doorstep.

We do not want to start a fight with these three countries (France, Germany and Britain), but we don’t trust them either.”

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader