Europeans scramble to save Iran nuclear deal without U.S.
Leaders schedule meeting with Iran
PARIS — European leaders opened a diplomatic push Wednesday to salvage the Iran nuclear accord without the United States, starting direct talks with Tehran and considering how to maintain business ties in the face of Washington opposition.
“The deal is not dead,” said French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, speaking on France’s RTL radio. “There’s an American withdrawal from the deal, but the deal is still there.”
French President Emmanuel Macron — Europe’s leading interlocutor as it sought to persuade President Donald Trump not to abandon the deal — spoke with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani by phone Wednesday.
“The French president emphasized the willingness of France to continue enforcing the Iran nuclear agreement in all respects,” said a statement from the Elysee Palace. “He underlined the importance that Iran do the same.”
Those sentiments were shared in other capitals backing the 2015 accord: Brussels, London, Berlin, Moscow and Beijing.
The European Union’s representative to China said Wednesday that the Iran nuclear deal will not “fall apart” despite the United States withdrawing from the landmark accord.
The EU believes “that this is an agreement that belongs to the international community,” Ambassador Hans Dietmar Schweisgut said during a press briefing in Beijing. “This is not an agreement that will fall apart if you just walk away.”
There are increasing voices for rupture within the European Union. Jean Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, the bloc’s bureaucracy, told Belgium’s Flemish regional parliament that Washington “no longer wants to cooperate with other parts in the world,” according to The Associated Press. “At this point, we have to replace the United States, which as an international actor has lost vigor, and because of it, in the long term, influence.”
The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany are to meet Monday with Iranian officials “to consider the entire situation,” Mr. Le Drian said.
Mr. Rouhani has ordered his diplomats to engage with their European counterparts. However, he and other moderates who support the accord, and diplomacy more generally, are under pressure from staunch conservatives who have long opposed it.
“I don’t trust these three EU countries either,” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, tweeted in English. “If the govt. wants to make a contract, they should ask for a guarantee, or else they will all do just as the U.S. did.”
Ayatollah Khamenei on Wednesday also declared that his country will need 20,000 megawatts of nuclear electricity for its power grid.
Although he did not explicitly suggest resuming uranium enrichment, the comments hinted that his country might step up its nuclear program.
For years Iran insisted that its nuclear program was for civilian use — even though it was buying fuel from Russia to power its one major reactor.
The ayatollah’s chastisement came as lawmakers lit a paper U.S. flag on fire inside parliament, shouting, “Death to America!”
Mr. Trump has complained that the deal’s sunset provisions did nothing to stop Iran from seeking nuclear weapons in the future.