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On Sunday, the United Kingdom’s Minister of State for the Middle East at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Alistair Burt took a one-day trip to Iran to meet Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and to hold talks on a number of issues, particularly those related to Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran Nuclear Agreement, the fate of which is now hangs on President Trump’s signature to waive sanctions on Iran.
President Trump has been a fierce critique of the JCPOA and in October he refused to certify Iran’s compliance with the agreement and in January, when he signed the sanctions waiver on Iran, it was informed that the President, who needs to sign the waiver every 120 days, is signing it for the last time, which gave the concerned parties a 120-day window to re-negotiate the deal or parts of it. All other partners to the agreement have urged President Trump to keep signing the waiver as Iran has threatened to exit the agreement if the United States re-imposes its sanction.
To persuade Trump in keeping the agreement as is, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Washington last week and the United States special friend the United Kingdom extended its support to the agreement. However, without making fresh concessions to the United States, the waiver is unlikely to receive Trump’s signature.
During his trip, Mr. Burt sat down for an interview with Iran Daily and here are some key points from the interview that sheds light on the situation,
- “Iran has abided by the terms of the JCPOA. The UK believes that the agreement constitutes a very important part of the relationship between Iran, the region, and the world. The agreement itself and adherence to it remain essential. It is the UK’s view that Iran has abided by the terms of the agreement. So we are working very hard to persuade all our partners to remain with the deal in the future. And then, that will also ensure that the other things we wished to talk about in relation to Iran’s relationship with the rest of the region, what happens next, remain open for talks and discussion in the future. But the JCPOA, we think, fulfills the purpose it was designed to achieve.”
- “the European partners and, to my understanding, all the other partners to the agreement are very determined that it should continue. We are continuing to work with our partners in the US to make sure that the deal is stuck to. Thus, we have not yet reached the situation where one or another party has decided to walk away from it. As the English idiom says ‘we will cross that bridge when we come to it’. However, we remain of the view that the JCPOA is extremely important and we will be determined to adhere to it. We would hope that all parties would feel the same. Nevertheless, we are not foolish. We understand the position the US is in. So we are working with them to seek to persuade the US as we convince any party to the agreement that it is worth abiding by the terms and sticking to.”
- When asked about President Macron’s hint of a new agreement, the Minister said, “What has been going on, has been a process between the European partners to the JCPOA and the US to try and see if there is a way of dealing with Washington’s concerns that would not involve the JCPOA coming to an end.”
