European Signatories Attempt Last-Ditch Effort to Save Nuclear Deal, While Iran Prepares To Break It
by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – Brian Hook, U.S. special envoy for Iran, is in Paris discussing the looming crisis in the Persian Gulf with Britain, France, and Germany, ahead of talks Friday that will see the European allies seek to implement the “INSTEX” currency system with Iran to circumvent Trump’s sanctions.
French President Emmanuel Macron took a conciliatory attitude toward the escalating US-Iran crisis Thursday by warning of the costliness of any military conflict, even while a UN security council meeting Wednesday saw Majid Takht Ravanchi, Iran’s UN Ambassador, conclude that the 2015 nuclear Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with European powers was in “critical condition.”
“There is no brief war,” Macron told reporters during his trip to Japan, echoing comments by Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on twitter the same day that “’Short war’ with Iran is an illusion,” both in response to President Trump’s assurances that war with Iran “wouldn’t last long.”
Iran was set to breach its 661-pound uranium limit as stipulated by the 2015 deal Thursday, though reports had not surfaced to the effect that it had done so, Iranian officials having claimed this week, in any case, that their rate of uranium enrichment had “quadrupled” since the imposition of sanctions.
European allies, and even Russia, continue to call on Iran to abide by the terms of the 2015 nuclear accord, but the Islamic Republic is looking less and less likely to do so as its spokesmen become increasingly irate in response to Trump’s dialectical negotiating style.