Europeans work to save Iran deal after Trump pulls out

WASHINGTON/PARIS: Dismayed European allies sought to salvage the international nuclear pact and preserve their business with Iran after President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the landmark accord and ordered sanctions re-imposed on Tehran.

“The deal is not dead. There’s an American withdrawal from the deal but the deal is still there,” French Foreign Minister JeanYves Le Drian said.

But Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a pragmatist who helped engineered the 2015 deal to ease Iran’s economically crippling isolation, told French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in a phone call that Europe had only a “limited opportunity” to preserve the pact, the Iranian Students’ News Agency reported.

“(Europe)...must, as quickly as possible, clarify its position and specify and announce its intentions with regard to its obligations,” ISNA quoted Rouhani as saying to Macron.

Macron, who like other European leaders had lobbied Trump to keep the agreement signed before he took office, urged Rouhani to keep respecting the deal and consider broader negotiations.

Trump said on Tuesday he would revive US economic sanctions, which would penalise foreign firms doing business with Tehran, to undermine what he called “a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made”.

On Wednesday, he said Iran would now either negotiate or

The deal is not dead. There’s an American withdrawal from the deal but the deal is still there. Jean-Yves Le Drian, French Foreign Minister

“something will happen.” It was not immediately clear what actions he was suggesting would take place.

Iran has drafted a “proportional” plan to cope with the US move, the official news agency IRNA quoted government spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht as saying.

He said budgets had been drawn up to deal with various scenarios, though did not elaborate.

The fruit of more than a decade of diplomacy, the nuclear agreement was clinched in July 2015 by the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia, China and Iran.

It was designed to prevent Iran developing a nuclear bomb in return for the removal of sanctions that had crippled its economy, not least by Washington threatening to penalise businesses anywhere in the world that traded with Iran.

Trump complained that the deal, the signature foreign policy achievement of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, did not address Iran’s ballistic missile program, its nuclear activities beyond 2025 or its role in conflicts in Yemen and Syria.

His decision raises the risk of deepening conflicts in the Middle East, puts the United States at odds with European diplomatic and business interests, and casts uncertainty over global oil supplies. Oil prices rose more than 2 per cent, with Brent touching a 3-1/2year high.

The US pullout could also strengthen the hand of hardliners in Iranian politics at the expense of moderates like Rouhani who had pinned their hopes on the deal to boost living standards in Iran, with limited success so far.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a hardliner, said: “Mr Trump, I tell you on behalf of the Iranian people: You’ve made a mistake ... I said many times from the first day: don’t trust America.”

France’s Le Drian, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) all said Iran was honouring its commitments under the accord.

“The region deserves better than further destabilisation provoked by American withdrawal,” Le Drian said.

Later on Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis sought to allay concerns that Washington had alienated itself from close allies with Trump’s decision.

“We will continue to work alongside our allies and partners to ensure that Iran can never acquire a nuclear weapon, and will work with others to address the range of Iran’s malign influence,” Mattis told a US Senate hearing.