EU, China to uphold N-deal
BRUSSELS, June 2, (Agencies): The European Union and China say they will do their utmost to keep afloat an international agreement to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons despite the US abandoning the pact.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Friday that “we will be unswerving in upholding it.”
Speaking alongside EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, he said the agreement has been endorsed by the UN and that “every party has the duty to implement it.”
Mogherini, who helps oversee the implementation of the 2015 nuclear deal, praised China and said Beijing, the EU and other partners are working “in full coordination” to save the pact.
President Donald Trump last month reneged on the agreement, saying it fails to stop Iran developing ballistic missiles or playing a damaging role in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, French oil major Total said Friday the probability of winning an exemption from US sanctions against Iran to continue a major gas field project was very faint.
The energy giant had already warned that, unless Washington granted it a
waiver, it would pull out of the South Pars 11 project which it started in July 2017, two years after Western powers signed a nuclear deal with Tehran prompting the return of many businesses to Iran.
But earlier this month, Trump announced his withdrawal from the deal, and told companies that they face sanctions if they do business with Iran.
Iran’s oil minister on Wednesday gave Total 60 days to win a sanctions waiver from Washington before it would lose its stake in the multi-billion-dollar project.
But on Friday, Total’s chairman Patrick Pouyanne told shareholders that the prospect of a sanctions exemption was dim.
“The probability of us getting an exemption is very slim”, he said.
Total said earlier this month that it has $10 billion of capital employed in its US assets, and US banks are involved in 90 percent of its financing operations, making Total highly vulnerable if targeted by any US actions.
By contrast, Total said it had spent less than 40 million euros ($47 million) on the Iranian project, which it runs with its partner Petrochina and which is dedicated to the supply of domestic gas inside Iran.
A withdrawal from the Iran project would not affect Total’s current overall production targets as the group had since opened up other growth opportunities, it said.
Meanwhile, Tehran said that Chinese state-owned oil company CNPC will replace Total on the gas project if the French company pulls out.
An Iranian military jet crashed on Saturday in the central Isfahan province, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, but the two pilots ejected before it came down in a desert area.
“The fighter ran into technical problems after departing the Shahid Babaei Air Base in Isfahan on a training flight and crashed mid-day near Hasanabad village,” the air force said in a statement published on Fars.
Emergency teams arrived at the crash site, Fars said, and the pilot and co-pilot of the F-7 jet were taken to a hospital.
NATO’s secretary-general says the alliance wouldn’t come to Israel’s defense in case of attack by arch enemy Iran.
Jens Stoltenberg told the magazine Der Spiegel in comments published Saturday that Israel is a partner, but not a member and that NATO’s “security guarantee” doesn’t apply to Israel.