The 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers faces a stern test at the UN this week as Europeans try to persuade a skeptical Trump administration to keep it, while Israel lobbies to turn up the pressure on its regional rival.
US President Donald Trump, who must make a decision by the middle of next month that could undermine the agreement, repeated on Thursday his long-held view that Iran was violating “the spirit” of the deal under which Tehran got sanctions relief in return for curbing its nuclear program.
The Republican US president has called the agreement, struck under his Democratic predecessor, former US president Barack Obama, “the worst deal ever negotiated.”
The prospect of Washington reneging on the agreement has worried some of the key US allies that helped negotiate it, especially as the world grapples with another nuclear crisis, North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile development.
“We all share US concerns about Iran’s destabilizing role in the region, but by mixing everything up, we risk losing everything,” said a senior European diplomat, who was part of the 18-month negotiation process that led to the accord.
Trump must decide next month whether to certify that Iran is complying with the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
If he does not, the US Congress has 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions waived under the deal.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday said that Tehran would react strongly to any “wrong move” by Washington on the nuclear deal.
At the UN General Assembly yesterday, Trump was to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed by French President Emmanuel Macron, who, like Trump, is making his inaugural appearance at the annual gathering of world leaders.
Both have very different messages to deliver.
“Our position is straightforward. This is a bad deal. Either fix it — or cancel it. This is Israel’s position,” Netanyahu said in Argentina on Tuesday last week as he toured Latin America.
Israeli officials said he would also relay concerns over what Israel describes as Tehran’s growing military entrenchment in Syria and its post-civil war role in that country.
They said changes that Israel was seeking in JCPOA included lengthening the 10-year freeze on Iran’s nuclear development program or even making that suspension permanent and destroying centrifuges rather than temporarily halting their operation.
The deal was brokered by the US, Russia, China, Britain, Germany and France. The six are to meet with Iran at the ministerial level tomorrow.
Paris took one of the hardest lines against Tehran in the negotiations, but has been quick to restore trade ties and Macron has said repeatedly there is no alternative to the deal.
French officials say Iran is respecting the JCPOA and that were the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which ensures its implementation, to say otherwise, a mechanism exists to reimpose sanctions.
Macron, who won praise from Trump while hosting him in July at France’s Bastille Day celebrations, was to warn him that weakening or scrapping the deal would not only add fuel to a regional powder keg, but deter North Korea from negotiating on its nuclear program, French diplomats said.
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