US, France set for talks next week
>> WASHINGTON: French President Emmanuel Macron is scheduled to be in the United States from April 23-25 where he is expected to address a joint session of Congress on the final day of his visit.
Both presidents will discuss the Iran nuclear agreement at the White House on Tuesday, although discussions with European countries on addressing US concerns about the 2015 deal were “not quite done yet”, a senior administration official said on Friday.
Trump accuses Tehran of violating the spirit of the nuclear deal and called on European powers to “fix” what he says are the “terrible flaws” in the agreement. He wants new restrictions to be imposed on Tehran’s nuclear and missile programs.
The official told reporters at a briefing that Mr Trump would also discuss other issues with Mr Macron, including the joint military strike on Syria this month following a suspected chemical weapons attack near Damascus.
The deal reached between Iran, the United States and five other world powers put curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
Mr Trump has called the agreement one of the worst deals ever negotiated. In January, he sent an ultimatum to Britain, France and Germany, sometimes referred to as the E3, saying they must agree to fix what the United States sees as the deal’s flaws or he would refuse to extend the critical US sanctions relief that it entails.
“The Europeans, E-3 in particular, have been working hard in trying to address some of our more important or prominent concerns having to do with Iran’s ballistic missile programme, for example, the sunset clause in the JCPOA and so on,” the senior administration official said, referring to the agreement by its acronym. “That work is not quite done yet”.
US disarmament ambassador Robert Wood said on Thursday that Washington had been having “intense” discussions with the three European allies ahead of the May 12 deadline, when US sanctions against Iran will resume.