Trump issues threat over deals with Iran
• Tehran rejects last-minute US offer for talks, saying Washington reneged on accord
US President Donald Trump pledged on Tuesday that firms doing business with Tehran would be barred from the US as new sanctions against Iran took effect despite pleas from Washington’s allies.
Iran dismissed a last-minute offer from the Trump administration for talks, saying it could not negotiate while Washington had reneged on a 2015 deal to lift sanctions in return for curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Trump decided in 2018 to pull out of the agreement, ignoring pleas from the other world powers that had cosponsored the deal, including Washington’s main European allies, Britain, France and Germany, as well as Russia and China.
The European countries have promised to try mitigating the effect of renewed US sanctions to persuade Tehran to continue abiding by the deal’s terms. But that has proven difficult. European companies have pulled out of Iran, arguing they cannot risk damaging their US business.
“These are the most biting sanctions ever imposed, and in November they ratchet up to yet another level. Anyone doing business with Iran will NOT be doing business with the United States. I am asking for WORLD PEACE, nothing less!” Trump tweeted on Tuesday.
John Bolton, White House national security adviser, said on Monday Iran’s only chance of escaping sanctions would be to take up an offer to negotiate with Trump for a tougher deal. “They could take up the president’s offer to negotiate with them, to give up their ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programmes fully and really verifiably,” Bolton told Fox News.
“If the ayatollahs want to get out from under the squeeze, they should come and sit down. The pressure will not relent while the negotiations go on,” said Bolton, one of the administration’s main hawks on Iran.
Washington accepts that Iran has complied with the terms of the 2015 deal reached under Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, but says the agreement is flawed because it is not strenuous enough. Iran says it will continue to abide by the deal for now, if other countries can help protect it from the economic effect of Washington’s decision to pull out.
The sanctions that took effect on Tuesday target Iranian purchases of US dollars, metals trading, coal, industrial software and its car sector.
In a speech hours before the sanctions were due to take effect, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani rejected negotiations as long as Washington was no longer complying with the deal.
“If you stab someone with a knife and then you say you want talks, then the first thing you have to do is remove the knife,” Rouhani said in a speech broadcast live on state television.
“We are always in favour of diplomacy and talks…. But talks need honesty,” he said.