<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Monday the European signatories of the Iranian nuclear deal should convince President Trump not to exit the controversial accord.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is either all or nothing,\u201d Mr. Zarif tweeted. \u201cEuropean leaders should encourage Trump not just to stay in the nuclear deal, but more important to begin implementing his part of the bargain in good faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Zarif\u2019s comments during a visit to New York City this week followed vows from other Iranian officials to \u201cshred\u201d the nuclear agreement if Washington withdraws from it and to resume the Islamic republic\u2019s nuclear program \u201cat much greater speed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Formally known as the JCPOA, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 deal saw Iran agree with the U.S., France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China to stop its nuclear weapons development in exchange for the lifting of international economic sanctions.<\/p>\n
But Washington opposition has grown as doubts \u2014 especially among conservatives and Mr. Trump \u2014 have multiplied over Iran\u2019s trustworthiness and compliance.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump has made revisiting the deal one of his top foreign policy priorities and attempted to leverage its quarterly reauthorization process as a negotiating chip while lashing out at Tehran for its ballistic missile program and continued support of Syrian President Bashar al Assad.<\/p>\n
Under U.S. law, the president must reauthorize the deal every 120-180 days by signing a waiver. For months, Mr. Trump has threatened to dump the deal unless it is tightened up. During the last reauthorization waiver extension in January, he said it was a \u201clast chance\u201d to change the accord before Washington withdraws.<\/p>\n
European signatories now have a May 12 White House deadline to change the deal, or Mr. Trump will refuse to extend U.S. sanctions relief on Iran \u2014 effectively killing the contentious, landmark agreement.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron urged Mr. Trump to stick with it, warning that there is no \u201cplan B\u201d if the U.S. opts out.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Macron is correct in saying there is no \u201cplan B\u201d on JCPOA,\u201d Mr. Zarif added on his Tweet Monday.<\/p>\n
The Iranian foreign minister sought to bolster the message during an appearance Monday evening at the Council on Foreign Relations, an American think tank in New York City, during which he argued that the nuclear deal as inked in 2015 was fair because all sides made serious concessions.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody won when we were trying to up the ante against one another \u2026 in the nuclear talks,\u201d Mr. Zarif said, adding that the deal worked because the various sides figured out that \u201ceverybody loses\u201d in a successful negotiation.<\/p>\n
But Mr. Zarif went on to argue that America under the Trump administration is now \u201cin violation\u201d of the deal even as Iran has been repeatedly credited with performing satisfactorily by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) \u2014 the U.N. nuclear watchdog tasked with overseeing the deal\u2019s implementation.<\/p>\n
The foreign minister claimed that Washington has failed to keep up its end of the deal by blocking licenses to international companies to invest in the Iranian economy. He suggested that the Trump administration is responsible for preventing the U.S. Treasury Department\u2019s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) from issuing such licenses since coming to office last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have 11 reports of the IAEA saying that Iran performed, but since President trump came to office, not a single license has been issued, not a single OFAC license,\u201d Mr. Zarif said. \u201cSo the U.S. is already in violation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Macron, meanwhile, is visiting Washington this week for three days of VIP events, including Mr. Trump\u2019s first state dinner on Tuesday with first lady Melania Trump, Brigitte Macron and Mr. Macron.<\/p>\n
The Iran issue will likely be discussed \u2014 with Paris having previously suggested tougher measures against Iran\u2019s ballistic missile programs to \u201csupplement\u201d the nuclear deal.<\/p>\n
Another deal ally, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, also visits the White House on April 27. While Mr. Trump and Mr. Macron have forged a close relationship, his bond with Mr. Merkel is said to be more distant.<\/p>\n
European commentators have noted that despite that, both Mr. Macron and Ms. Merkel seek to assure Mr. Trump that Europe shares his concerns about Iranian aggression across the Middle East.<\/p>\n
On a separate front Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said China and Russia would block any attempts to \u201csabotage\u201d the deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are attempts to interfere with the international order upon which the United Nations depends,\u201d Mr. Lavrov said, after talks with Chinese officials before a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a regional security bloc spearheaded by Moscow and Beijing.<\/p>\n
Praising the JCPOA as \u201cone of the biggest achievements in international diplomacy in recent times,\u201d Mr. Lavrov added that \u201crevising this document is unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guy Taylor contributed to this report.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iranian foreign minister says it’s up to Europe to convince President Trump not to exit the controversial accord. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Monday the European signatories of the Iranian nuclear deal should convince President Trump not to exit the controversial accord. \u201cIt is either all or nothing,\u201d Mr. Zarif tweeted. \u201cEuropean leaders […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[483,34],"class_list":["post-2857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-worlds","tag-melania-trump","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}