IRAN Europe struggles to end crisis through diplomacy

BERLIN — France on Tuesday sent a top diplomat to Tehran to urge Iran to scale back its recently increased uranium enrichment activities, a mission underscored by a call from Europe for the Islamic Republic to return to complying with the terms of the unraveling nuclear deal “without delay.”

France, Britain and Germany, who remain a part of the 2015 nuclear accord along with Russia and China, said they planned to convene a meeting of the signatories amid “deep concern that Iran is not meeting several of its commitments.”

They said the meeting to address Iran’s compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA as the deal is formally known, needed to be “convened urgently,” but they did not say when that would happen.

Europe is under pressure from the U.S. to abandon the accord entirely, as Washington did unilaterally last year, and it also is being squeezed by Iran to offset the evercrippling effects of American economic sanctions.

That has left the Europeans’ softpower approach strained to its limits at a time of increasing tensions in the Middle East.

“For the Europeans, it’s going to be difficult not to lose credibility in their position with Iran and also with Washington, by not being too soft, but at the same time acknowledging that there is some truth to what Iran is saying,” said Adnan Tabatabai, a political scientist with the Bonnbased CARPO think tank on Middle Eastern affairs.

In a thinly veiled threat to Iran on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood in front of an F35 stealth fighter during a tour of an air base and said one should “remember that these planes can reach every place in the Middle East, including Iran and certainly Syria.”

Britain, France and Germany urged “all parties to act responsibility toward deescalating ongoing tensions regarding Iran’s nuclear activities,” in their joint statement. They did not mention any country by name other than Iran itself.