MUNICH—European officials are intensifying their efforts to save the Iranian nuclear deal, opening a new channel to press Tehran to curtail its military involvement in neighboring conflicts just as tensions spiral throughout the Middle East.
European diplomats sat down with a senior Iranian official over the weekend on the sidelines of a major security conference in Munich. They hope to check Iranian activity in Yemen, Syria and other parts of the Middle East as a way to show U.S. President Donald Trump that Iranian expansion can be reversed while sticking with the nuclear agreement.
Mr. Trump has threatened to kill the Iranian nuclear deal in May, when he must decide whether to keep in place sanctions waivers required under the 2015 agreement. The nuclear deal lifted most international sanctions on Iran in exchange for Tehran tightly restricting its nuclear program.
Administration officials have complained the 2015 agreement does nothing to check Iran’s regional actions. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Sunday Tehran had “doubled down” on its regional meddling after concluding the deal.
U.S. national security adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster on Saturday accused Iran of building a network of proxy forces, like Hezbollah, and arming them with increasingly sophisticated weaponry.
“So the time is now…to act against Iran,” Gen. McMaster said in Munich.
Chaired by the European Union, the meeting on Saturday morning was attended by senior officials from Italy, Germany, Britain and France, and Iran’s powerful Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, also a key player in negotiating the nuclear deal. The focus of discussions was the conflict in Yemen, according to Western and Iranian officials.
Those officials said talks will likely turn to Syria, the scene of escalating tensions, in particular between Iran and Israel.
Earlier this month, Israel launched attacks on Syrian air defenses and Iranian fighters in Syria after Israel intercepted an Iranian drone launched from Syria. An Israeli jet was shot down during the attacks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned in Munich on Sunday that Israel won’t accept an Iranian presence close to its border in southern Syria and could strike Iran directly if Tehran doesn’t back away.
“We will act without hesitation to defend ourselves,” he said. “And we will act if necessary not just against Iran’s proxies but against Iran itself.”
European governments, which have strongly supported the Iranian nuclear agreement, have pledged to work with Washington to address nonnuclear concerns, such as Iran’s missile program and its regional activities. However they say this should happen separate from discussion on the nuclear deal and that they won’t renegotiate the 2015 deal.
European and U.S. officials set up working groups last month to discuss these issues. Around the same time, the Europeans agreed with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to start discussing regional issues in the new format.
Over the weekend, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel warned that while the EU would maintain its support for the Iranian nuclear deal, Europe was ready to work with the U.S. against “the destabilizing influence of Iranian policies in the region and to push them back.”
France has said Iranian firms or people could be targeted with new sanctions over its missile program.
Iran has refused to enter discussions on ballistic missiles, with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who controls security policy, saying on Sunday that Western countries want to keep Iran weak so they can “bully them.” Iranian officials note Western countries are making large arms sales to their regional foes, like Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Iranian officials have called on Europe to stick by the nuclear deal. Mr. Zarif warned on Sunday that if the nuclear deal is undermined, “Iran will respond, will respond seriously.”
Iranian officials said they have long called for more active European diplomacy on regional tensions. However it is unclear whether they will give any ground in talks. While EU economic sanctions give the bloc some leverage, Europe has no significant military presence in the region to curtail Iran’s ambitions.
On Sunday on his semiofficial Twitter feed, Mr. Khamenei lambasted European countries for bowing to U.S. pressure on Iran.
“On nuclear talks, we trusted them,” he said of Western governments. “we didn’t benefit from that trust.”
European officials have said that to work with Washington on their concerns about Iran, they expect Mr. Trump to end uncertainty over the nuclear deal’s fate. Many complain that the U.S. demands for sticking by the deal remain vague.
In Munich, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan sought to respond to that. He said that by the time of Mr. Trump’s next Iran deal deadline on May 12, Washington hoped to win “a commitment that we can…credibly show to the president (that) we’re making progress” to address the deal’s flaws and Iran’s missiles and regional actions.
Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com
Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com
Bagikan Berita Ini
Related Posts :
Hong Kong demonstrators storm government building, police fire tear gas to disperse protesters - Fox News- Trump: Iran 'playing with fire' with uranium enrichment - Aljazeera.com
- Hong Kong's democracy movement was about hope. These protests are driven by desperation - CNN
- Hundreds of Hong Kong protesters storm government building over China extradition bill - CNN
- Solar eclipse 2019: How to watch the solar eclipse TODAY when the moon blocks out sun - Express.co.uk