European Leaders Criticize Trump’s Disavowal of Iran Deal
OCT. 13, 2017
LONDON — Iran, Russia and European leaders roundly condemned President Trump’s decision on Friday to disavow the Iran nuclear deal, saying that it reflected the growing isolation of the United States,
threatened to destabilize the Middle East and could make it harder to resolve the growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
The reaction was far from panicked, as Mr. Trump’s decision punts to Congress the critical decision of whether the United States will reimpose sanctions on Iran — a step that would effectively sink the deal.
But Mr. Trump also warned that unless the nuclear agreement was altered and made permanent — to prohibit Iran from ever developing nuclear weapons — he would terminate the agreement, an ultimatum that threw the future of the accord into question.
Though they avoided direct criticism of Mr. Trump, Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France said in a rare joint statement that they “stand committed” to the 2015 nuclear deal and that preserving it was “in our shared national security interest.”
“The nuclear deal was the culmination of 13 years of diplomacy and was a major step towards ensuring that Iran’s nuclear program is not diverted for military purposes,” they added.
Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s foreign minister, said that Mr. Trump was sending “a difficult and also from our point of view dangerous signal.”
He said that the Iran deal, and other diplomatic achievements, were necessary “to convince countries like North Korea, and maybe also others, that it is possible to create security without acquiring nuclear weapons.”
“Destroying this agreement would, worldwide, mean that others could no longer rely on such agreements — that’s why it is a danger that goes further than Iran,” he added.
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Russia, which took part in the negotiations to reach the accord and has warned Mr. Trump not to rescind it, said that the president had no basis for disavowing the deal.
“Iran is abiding” by the nuclear agreement, Mikhail Ulyanov, a director at the Russian foreign ministry, told the Interfax news agency. “Everyone agrees with that. And an attempt to somehow heighten the tensions in this situation looks like unmotivated aggression.”
In blunt language, Ms. Mogherini, the European Union’s top diplomat, essentially looked past Mr. Trump and appealed to Congress directly.
America’s next step “is now in the hands of the United States Congress,” she said. “The international community and the European Union with it has clearly indicated that the deal is and will continue to be in place.”
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The United Arab Emirates, which like Saudi Arabia is a predominantly Sunni Muslim country with a sizable Shiite minority, also said that it “fully supports” Mr. Trump’s stance on Iran.
Some leaders declared that the deal, reached in 2015 between Iran and six world powers, including the United States, was not something that Mr. Trump could cancel, contending that Mr. Trump was essentially putting on a show for his political base.
“The president of the United States has many powers — not this one,” the European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, said at a news conference in Brussels.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/w...lear-deal.html