Deadline looms as allies rally to save Iran deal from Trump
French President Emmanuel Macron has said he has persuaded his American counterpart Donald Trump to keep his forces in Syria and limit strikes on chemical weapons facilities.
Macron and other European allies will now try to persuade Trump to not abandon the Iran nuclear deal.
The deal, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was signed in 2015 by the US, France, Germany, Russia, China and the EU with Iran to halt Tehran’s nuclear weapons programme. The plan must be certified every 90 days by Trump for the US to stay in it.
Trump has long opposed it, saying the accord will allow Iran to resume its nuclear weapons programme after the sunset deadline, has left its ballistic missiles programme untouched, and has not held Tehran accountable for its “malign” activities.
Macron is expected to bring up the deal when he meets Trump at the White House on Wednesday. The French leader has said there is no Plan B for the deal and it must be preserved.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel will deliver Trump the same message when she visits Washington later this week.
Europeans have acknowledged the deal is not perfect but argue it must be “preserved”.
Even the Chinese and the Russians want the deal to continue and have said they will prevent any attempt by the US to wreck it.
Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned against tearing up the deal. “That’s a very dangerous message to send to people of Iran, but also to the people of the world — that you should never come to an agreement with the United States because at the end of the day, the operating principle of the United States is ‘what’s mine is mine, what’s yours is negotiable.” HTC