‘Europe can’t help us’ – Iran

NUKE DEAL: CONTINENT ‘LIMITED’ TO PRESERVE IT

Resistance is the only way to confront enemies, not diplomacy, says leader.

European countries are powerless to salvage the nuclear deal with Iran after the United States pulled out, the deputy head of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said yesterday.

Britain, France and Germany said they remained committed to the deal despite Tuesday’s decision by US President Donald Trump to withdraw.

But Brigadier-General Hossein Salami said Europe “cannot act independently over the nuclear deal”, the semiofficial Fars news agency quoted him as saying.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tehran would remain in the 2015 agreement, though Europe had only a “limited opportunity” to preserve it.

On Wednesday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cast doubt on the ability of the European signatories to guarantee Tehran’s interests, adding: “I do not trust these countries either.”

Khamenei has the final say on all state matters and commands the loyalty of the IRGC, which has huge political and economic influence domestically.

Salami said Iran’s enemies were not seeking military confrontation. “They want to pressure our country by economic isolation. Resistance is the only way to confront these enemies, not diplomacy.”

Trump also said on Tuesday he would revive US economic sanctions against Iran, penalising foreign firms doing business with Tehran and further undermining what he called “a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made”.

Europeans fear a collapse of the deal could raise the risk of deepening conflicts in the Middle East.

Yesterday, Iranian forces launched their first attack on Israel from inside Syria, firing rockets at army bases in the Golan Heights, Israel said (see report below).

That prompted one of the heaviest Israeli barrages against Syria since the conflict there began in 2011.

The pact, the signature foreign policy achievement of Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, was designed to prevent Iran developing a nuclear bomb in exchange for lifting most sanctions that had crippled its economy. Sanctions were removed in 2016.