Iran Nuclear deal, News and discussion

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US seeks to split UK from European allies over Iran

Ambassador Woody Johnson calls on the UK to use diplomatic clout to put pressure on Tehran


The United States has issued a public call to its ally Britain to back its economic and political campaign to punish Iran for backing proxy wars and “malign activities” abroad.


The US ambassador to London, Woody Johnson, said the UK should use its “considerable diplomatic power and influence” to secure a new deal that curtails Iran’s nuclear ambitions.


US President Donald Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) three months ago in the face of strong lobbying from the UK, European powers, Russia and China, who backed the continuation of the Barack Obama-era deal.


The UK has made it clear that it opposed Mr Trump’s move, one of a number of foreign policy disagreements that have strained relations between the two long-term allies.


In co-ordination with European powers, the UK has continued to work to enable companies to trade with Iran even as Mr Trump has imposed fresh sanctions and warned companies of the dangers of doing business with the country.


Mr Johnson made clear in a newspaper column at the weekend that he wanted the UK to split from the European bloc to work with the US on the package of anti-Iranian sanctions. He said that Iran had squandered the economic benefit from the 2015 nuclear deal to ramp up military spending and expand its terrorist networks.




“The Iranian regime is spending billions of dollars to destabilise the region. It is backing Assad’s atrocities against the Syrian people,” he wrote in an article for UK’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper.


“It is launching cyber attacks against Western democracies. It is sponsoring Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon. It is arming militants in Yemen. It has publicly stated its quest to destroy Israel.”


Mr Johnson said the Trump administration had spent the last year talking with its closest ally Britain to fix the nuclear agreement.


“The only sensible course of action was to rip it up and build a lasting agreement on more solid foundations,” he wrote.


“Until then, America is turning up the pressure and we want the UK by our side. It is time to move on from the flawed 2015 deal.


“We are asking global Britain to use its considerable diplomatic power and influence and join us as we lead a concerted global effort towards a genuinely comprehensive agreement.”


The article followed comments by Britain's Middle East minister, Alistair Burt, who last week ruled out Britain going along with the policy of the US.

US seeks to split UK from European allies over Iran
 
Divide to rule has always been the name of the game.

However, this time, the US administration is largely too incompetent to play the game, so much that they even have trouble with rallying the UK.

And this kind of rhetoric is especially empty:
“The only sensible course of action was to rip it up and build a lasting agreement on more solid foundations.”​
Yeah, no, the sensible course of action in diplomacy is never to show that you are not a reliable partner. The USA, ever since Trump took office, has reneged on several important (and internationally acclaimed) agreements, be they about the climate or about Iran, and then has started a trade war with its closest allies (Canada, Europe, Japan) and its largest economic partner (China). Who the *censored* is going to want to negotiate anything with the US now? The USA have proven themselves to be the scorpion of the fable, who stings those who help it because it's in its nature. Any agreement signed with the US is not going to be "lasting" because everyone knows the next POTUS is just going to wipe his *censored* with it. American words have no value, and Woody Johnson is complicit in their depreciation.
 
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I agree.. Trump's idea of fair deal is not based on values or principles.His idea of fair agreement is an agreement where he gets everything and others get nothing. World is not stupid, sometimes I think he really is a Russian agent. Europe was always been very loyal to US and followed US decisions many times which give no benefits to EU whats so ever. Trust between nations are something that takes many decades to build and Trump is destroying American credibility and role as a leader. I don't think many Europeans thought about the possibility of a EU -US trade war in their wildest dreams few years back.
A Person said:
Divide to rule has always been the name of the game.
Click to expand...

It was. Europeans are more smarter to see that so US will find it hard to play that game in Europe unlike middle east. United Europe is not a small entity that can easily be pushed around.
 
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Iran’s Top Leader Faults Rouhani for Crisis, Saying He Crossed ‘Red Lines’
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Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sharply criticized the country’s president during remarks in Tehran on Monday.CreditOffice of the Iranian Presidency
By Rick Gladstone

  • Aug. 13, 2018
Iran’s supreme leader made his sharpest criticism yet of his country’s president on Monday, faulting him for having crossed “red lines” in nuclear negotiations with the United States and other failures that have created an economic crisis.

The remarks by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, compounded the pressure on Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, who is contending with economic protests, anger over endemic corruption, the threat of possible armed conflict with the United States and calls from Iran’s hard-line factions for resignations in his government.

Mr. Rouhani’s promises that the 2015 nuclear agreement reached with the United States and other world powers would lead to an economic revival in Iran have been thwarted since the Trump administration renounced the agreement in May and moved to restore American sanctions.

Over the past three months, Iran’s currency has plunged in value and large multinational companies have scrapped plans to do business in Iran, intimidated by the strong threat of financial penalties in the United States.

Ayatollah Khamenei said Monday that because of the insistence of Mr. Rouhani and his team, he had allowed them to negotiate the nuclear agreement, in which Iran curbed its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. However, Ayatollah Khamenei said, Iranian negotiators surrendered too much and “trespassed the red lines that had been set.”

Were it not for his own advice to Mr. Rouhani, the ayatollah said, “we would have given up more.”

Ayatollah Khamenei’s remarks, in a speech reported on state-run media and excerpted on his website and Twitter accounts, show how he has sought to distance himself from Mr. Rouhani. The remarks also amounted to his first public rejection of President Trump’s offer two weeks ago of unconditional talks with Iran.

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While other Iranian officials, including Mr. Rouhani, already had spurned the offer, Ayatollah Khamenei’s rejection is considered the final word.

“The Islamic Republic can negotiate with America whenever it achieves the power to resist America’s pressure and blackmail,” the ayatollah said. “Today this is not the case.”

Invoking the admonition of Iran’s revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to never negotiate with the United States, Ayatollah Khamenei said, “I prohibit it as well.”


His remarks came as Iran’s military flexed its muscle, showing a new generation of short-range missiles after conducting war-game maneuvers last week in the Persian Gulf, where warships of the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet also patrol.

Most outside analysts say Iran is not interested in armed conflict with the United States. Ayatollah Khamenei used the opportunity to also make it clear that Iran was not seeking a fight, even as he denounced the Americans in his own version of a Trump-style Twitter posting.

“Beside sanctions, they are talking about war and negotiations,” he said. “In this regard, let me say a few words to the people: THERE WILL BE NO WAR, NOR WILL WE NEGOTIATE WITH THE U.S.”



Ayatollah Khamenei’s virulent hostility toward the United States is well known, and he has said before that the Trump administration’s repudiation of the nuclear agreement had proved his suspicion — which he expressed to Mr. Rouhani — that the Americans could not be trusted.

But analysts who follow Iran’s opaque politics said his criticism on Monday was sharper in assigning blame to Mr. Rouhani.

“My sense is that Khamenei is throwing Rouhani under the bus, in a number of ways,” said Mehrzad Boroujerdi, an Iran expert and political science professor at Syracuse University.

While Ayatollah Khamenei also blamed himself for having approved the nuclear negotiations, the professor said, “he’s transferring the guilt to Rouhani.”

The ayatollah’s criticisms do not presage the political downfall of Mr. Rouhani, a moderate cleric who is in the last three years of his second term.

On the contrary, Ayatollah Khamenei also made it clear to the hard-line factions in Iran’s hierarchy that he disapproved of their efforts to sabotage Mr. Rouhani’s administration.

“Those who call on the government to step down are playing a part in the enemy’s plot,” he said. “The government should remain and carry on with its responsibilities with authority to solve problems.”

Henry Rome, an Iran analyst at the Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm in Washington, said Ayatollah Khamenei might have weighed in because the possibility of talks with Mr. Trump still was publicly discussed in Iran.

“We hadn’t heard from him since Trump made repeated overtures,” Mr. Rome said, and despite Mr. Rouhani’s rejection of such talks, “there was a debate going on in Iran — it wasn’t a taboo subject — so Khamenei had to come out and say something.”

Ayatollah Khamenei spoke a week after the first round of the restored American sanctions took effect, restricting Iran’s use of dollars and its business in gold, metals, aviation, automobiles and other industries.

The second — and far more onerous — round of restored sanctions will take effect in November, when the Trump administration has warned that buyers of Iran’s oil — its most important export — could face American penalties.


Iran’s Top Leader Faults Rouhani for Crisis, Saying He Crossed ‘Red Lines’


Looks like Iranian moderate fraction is gonna be in a very bad shape after US unilateral pullout from the nuclear deal
 
(afp, march15)
Iran nuclear: Russia received the guarantees it wanted from the US

Russia said on Tuesday it had received a guarantee from Washington that sanctions against it over Ukraine would not affect its cooperation with Tehran, seemingly removing an obstacle to the revival of the Iran nuclear deal.

"We got written guarantees. They have been included in the agreements to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran's nuclear programme," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said alongside his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

According to him, future Russian-Iranian nuclear cooperation is assured, "especially with regard to its flagship, the Bouchehr nuclear power plant".

Russia had been accused of trying to derail the Iranian nuclear negotiations after it demanded on 5 March US guarantees that its future cooperation with Iran in the field of civil nuclear energy would not be affected by the sanctions adopted because of the Russian offensive against Ukraine.

"The Americans are trying every day to say that we are holding up the (Iran nuclear) deal, but this is a lie," Lavrov said. "The agreement is not finally approved in several capitals, but the Russian capital, Moscow, is not one of them.

According to him, we are now in the "home stretch", although the signing of a compromise has appeared imminent on several occasions in recent weeks.

The Iranian Foreign Minister stressed during the same press conference that there was no connection between "what is happening in Ukraine (...) and the Vienna talks" on the Iranian nuclear issue.

"Following my talks with Mr Lavrov, Russia - as it has done in recent years, playing a positive role in these talks to reach a solid agreement - will stand by Iran," he said.

"The US side must reduce its excessive demands so that we can reach an agreement," Hossein Amir-Abdollahian insisted.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price played down the issue, saying it had always been understood that the US would not sanction Russian involvement in nuclear projects related to the revival of the JCPOA.

The new sanctions against Russia in connection with Ukraine "are not related to a potential return to full compliance with the JCPOA, and they should have no impact on its implementation," Price said.

"We have not provided any assurances beyond that to Russia," he added.

The spokesman said that there were still "some" outstanding issues in the negotiations with Tehran, and that these had to be resolved before a final agreement could be reached.

"Now that we are so close to the finish line, these outstanding issues tend to be the most difficult ones," he said without elaborating on their nature.

"So we're not there yet. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed," he said.

Crucial efforts are underway to salvage the 2015 deal that was struck by Iran on one side and the US, China, France, the UK, Russia and Germany on the other.

It was intended to prevent Iran from acquiring an atomic bomb, an intention that Iran has always denied, by giving it the right to civilian nuclear power.

The agreement allowed the lifting of international economic sanctions imposed on Tehran in exchange for strict limits on its nuclear programme.

But the US withdrew from the agreement in 2018 under President Donald Trump and reinstated punitive measures that are strangling Iran's economy. In response, Tehran has largely relaxed restrictions on its nuclear activities.

Once in the White House, Democrat Joe Biden sought to return to the deal, but indirect negotiations were difficult.

Nucléaire iranien: la Russie a reçu les garanties qu'elle voulait des Etats-Unis
 
(AP via english.alarabiya, may31)

Iran confirms contact with US over nuclear talks​

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian on Tuesday addressed negotiations with the US over the collapsed 2015 nuclear deal, telling reporters he shared concerns with US Vice President Kamala Harris through a third party when they were in Munich earlier this year.

Iran has repeatedly demanded guarantees that no future US president could unilaterally abandon the agreement, as former President Donald Trump did in 2018.

“I asked (an intermediary) to tell senior US officials who were in Munich, Ms Kamala Harris and US Secretary of State Mr (Antony) Blinken, why in talks, despite so much hard work done during the past months, you keep saying that whatever deal we agree on we can't guarantee that the next US administration would honour it,” Amirabdollahian said.

He added: “I told the minister (unidentified) to please tell Ms Kamala Harris: ‘If a group of rebels are going to take over the White House, could you please let us know?’ Even if a group of rebels take over, they must be committed to international agreements, based on international law. It is not acceptable, neither legally nor politically, for an incumbent administration to return to an agreement to say I can't offer any guarantee regarding what the next administration will do.”

The White House has said it cannot make such a commitment.

Talks to restore Tehran's tattered nuclear deal with world powers have hit a deadlock.

Hostilities have simmered as Iran accelerates its nuclear program far beyond the limits of the nuclear deal and last week seized two Greek tankers on a key oil route through the Gulf.
english.alarabiya.net

Iran confirms contact with US over nuclear talks

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian on Tuesday addressed negotiations with the US over the collapsed 2015 nuclear deal, telling reporters he
english.alarabiya.net english.alarabiya.net
 
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