France, Britain and Germany will keep to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran irrespective of the United States’ decision later this week because it is the best way to avoid nuclear proliferation, France’s foreign minister said on Monday.
“We are determined to save this deal because this accord safeguards against nuclear proliferation and is the right way to stop Iran getting a nuclear weapon,” Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters in Berlin, Reuters reported.
Iran says its nuclear program has no military aspects.
Germany does not see any reason to scrap the nuclear deal and would do everything possible to uphold it, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Monday.
“We continue to believe that this agreement makes the world safer and without this agreement the world would be less safe,” Maas said at a joint news conference with his visiting French counterpart.
“We fear a failure would result in an escalation,” Maas said.
With the clock ticking on US President Donald Trump's May 12 deadline to either renegotiate or withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson visited Washington Monday in a last-ditch bid to persuade him not to abandon the pact.
Britain is the third European power to lobby the White House in favor of saving the agreement, after Germany’s Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron also tried to make the case.
Ahead of meetings with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence and National Security Adviser John Bolton, Johnson warned that it would be “a mistake” to walk away from the deal.
"It has weaknesses, certainly, but I am convinced they can be remedied," he wrote in an opinion article for Monday’s New York Times.
The 2015 deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, offered Tehran relief from sanctions in exchange for its agreement to curb its nuclear program.
Trump wants to ditch the former US president Barack Obama-era accord, saying that he will refuse to extend US sanctions relief for Iran unless it is renegotiated; the deadline for sanctions renewal is Saturday.
Britain, France and Germany believe the deal is worth saving because it gets rid of 95% of Iran’s enriched uranium and allows UN inspections with no advance notice.
“Now that these handcuffs are in place, I see no possible advantage in casting them aside,” Johnson wrote. “At this delicate juncture, it would be a mistake to walk away from the nuclear agreement and remove the restraints that it places on Iran.”
He added, "I believe that keeping the deal’s constraints on Iran’s nuclear program will also help counter Tehran’s aggressive regional behavior. I am sure of one thing: every available alternative is worse. The wisest course would be to improve the handcuffs rather than break them.”
***Key Republican Against Ditching Deal
The Republican leader of the US House Armed Services Committee said Trump should not walk away from the Iran nuclear deal.
Texas Congressman Mac Thornberry said on Fox News Sunday it would be a mistake for Trump to scuttle the nuclear accord reached with Tehran. “I would counsel against it,” he said.
As chairman of the committee, Thornberry is considered a key Republican voice on national security issues. Thornberry said that while he was opposed to the deal when it was signed by the Obama Administration in 2015, exiting the agreement now would erode Washington’s leverage against Tehran.
“I thought it was a bad deal,” he said. “But the key question is, ok, what happens next if the US pulls out? Does Iran kick out those inspectors so we lose the visibility we have?”
Trump Administration officials have said the nuclear accord fails to address Iran’s ballistic missile program and will allow Tehran to rebuild its nuclear program after some of its provisions expire.
Thornberry said that Trump should work with European allies to address these shortcomings in the accord. But scuttling the deal, he said, would take pressure off Iran by dividing Washington from its allies.
“The Europeans are not going to reimpose sanctions so where does that leave us and Iran?” he said.
