Britain warned over Iran nuclear deal ‘folly’
Tehran considers responses after threat by president to leave agreement unless it is rewritten in tougher terms
BRITAIN should “sit up and take notice” of the “folly” of trusting Iran’s pledges to limit nuclear activity, Israel’s ambassador to the UK warns today.
Revealing that Israel has now given the British access to a secret “atomic archive” stolen from Tehran, Mark Regev claims the existing international deal with the country is “untenable” because it bases “our common security upon Iranian duplicity and mendacity.”
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph days before a deadline on which Donald Trump has indicated he could pull the US out of the agreement, Mr Regev sets out “three major pitfalls” in the 2015 deal, which he says is also opposed by Arab neighbours of Iran.
He makes the intervention as Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, is due to travel to the US for talks with senior figures, which will be seen as part of a last-ditch diplomatic effort to persuade Mr Trump not to withdraw from the deal. Theresa May, along with Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, have urged Mr Trump not to dismantle the agreement.
But Mr Regev states that the current agreement allows Iran to continue to develop ballistic missiles, contains a “wholly inadequate” inspection mechanism and will ultimately leave Iran free to enrich unlimited quantities of uranium. Last week Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, revealed that Israeli spies had obtained documents that show Iran’s leaders had never given a full account of their past nuclear activities as required by the deal and had maintained the capability to build an atomic bomb in the future.
Mr Trump said the presentation, designed to encourage him to pull out of the deal on Saturday, when he faces a deadline over reimposing American sanctions on Iran, “showed that I’ve been 100 per cent right” about the agreement amounting to a “bad deal”.
Mr Regev says that Iran’s “continued encroachment and aggression, along with the three major pitfalls in the 2015 agreement, and the dramatic new revelations from Iran’s nuclear archive, all attest to the folly of basing our common security upon Iranian duplicity and mendacity.”
He adds: “When Iran’s neighbours – Arab and Israeli alike – agree that the … deal is untenable, people in the UK should sit up and take notice.”
THE government of Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, would consider the Iran nuclear deal void and could restart high-level uranium enrichment and restrict inspector access to its nuclear sites if Donald Trump pulls the US out of the agreement next week.
The moves are among a list of op- tions drawn up in Tehran as possible responses if Mr Trump refuses to extend a waiver on US sanctions on May 12, a senior Iranian official told The Sunday Telegraph.
The proposals, which would be considered dangerously provocative by Western governments, reflect domestic pressure on Mr Rouhani’s government as hard-line conservatives use the looming failure of the flagship deal to attack him and Javad Zarif, his foreign minister.
The Iranian government on Thursday publicly ruled out any form of renegotiation of the agreement, apparently scuppering European efforts to broker a last-minute compro- mise between Tehran and Washington. Mr Zarif said Iran would not give in to demands for “appeasement” by agreeing to Mr Trump’s demands for more rigorous safeguards on Tehran’s nuclear activities, and accused the US itself of being in breach of the deal.
“We will never outsource our security nor renegotiate or add on to a deal we have already implemented in good faith,” Mr Zarif said in a video posted on YouTube.
“The United States will have to decide whether to finally abide by its obligations,” he added. “If the US continues to violate the agreement we will exercise our right to respond in a manner or our choosing.” Mr Zarif did not specify what measures Iran is considering. However, a senior Iranian official speaking on condition of anonymity said measures could include resuming enrichment of uranium to 20 per cent and ceasing to grant International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors the enhanced access to Iranian nuclear sites specified under the agreement,
Tehran would be obliged to “take a proper response which is fully supported by public opinion” if Mr Trump did not renew the sanctions waiver, the official said.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, was signed by Iran, the US, UK, France, China and Russia, and the EU, in 2015. Mr Trump has said the deal, which offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for not building a nuclear bomb, is so ineffective it is “insane.”
He has threatened to withdraw the US unless it is rewritten with tighter restrictions and inspections, and has demanded additional measures to address concerns about Iran’s ballistic missile program and foreign policy across the Middle East.
Mr Trump has set a deadline of May 12, the day he would normally extend a waiver on sanctions against Iran that was part of the US commitment to the nuclear deal, to decide whether he will remain in the agreement.
Israel and Saudi Arabia, Iran’s re- gional enemies, have backed Mr Trump’s stance. European governments including the UK and France urged the US to remain in the agreement and have attempted to persuade Iran to either accept additional measures that would satisfy Mr Trump, or at least to stay in the agreement even if the US leaves it.
Mr Zarif ’s comments appeared to be a rejection of those appeals for compromise. Instead, he cited IAEA reports that have found Iran is not in breach of the deal and accused the US of violating the agreement because it has not fully lifted sanctions. Ali Akbar Velayati, a foreign policy adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, confirmed that Iran would not compromise.