European Unity on Iran Nuclear Deal May Be Cracking

“The U.K. will have a very difficult decision to make on a case-by-case basis when it comes to whether or not to remain aligned with European allies who tend to be more like-minded in terms of foreign policy considerations, or whether to prioritize commercial interests. And as we move forward, I think this is really going to be, the Iran case will be a very interesting litmus test for the U.K.”

Iran announced this month it would ignore all restrictions on its nuclear enrichment activities, but insisted it was permitted to do so under the 2015 deal, because the U.S. was the first signatory to break the agreement.

“The nuclear deal … was written with full knowledge of the fact that it might be violated by various parties. That is why we put in mechanisms in order to make sure that if one party or several parties violated the deal, we could take measures in order to keep it alive. Iran took those measures some time ago in May of 2018 and those measures are working,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Thursday.

European signatories have formally triggered a dispute mechanism against Iran that is part of the nuclear deal. That process could end at the U.N. Security Council, with a so-called snapback of all U.N. sanctions on Iran.

Iran would then likely abandon the 2015 deal altogether, said Peter Jenkins, a former British ambassador to the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog who previously conducted negotiations with Iran.

“The Iranians would start making use of the far more advanced centrifuges that they now possess to produce enriched uranium,” Jenkins told VOA. “And what the Americans call the “breakout” time — which is the amount of time it would take them to go from zero enrichment to 90 percent enrichment, which is weapons grade — with these more advanced centrifuges would be much shorter. They could do it much more quickly than was the case a decade ago.”

Europe may still have leverage. A 2007 U.N. arms embargo on Iran is set to expire in October. Europe could threaten to use the snapback mechanism to have the arms embargo reimposed unless Iran halted nuclear enrichment.

“The obvious way to use it is to threaten to trigger the snapback mechanism shortly before October this year,” Jenkins said. “But then we get back to the fact that as much as the Iranians do want to see that embargo lifted, they don’t react well to being threatened.”

Analysts say for now, Europe is trying to buy time and could wait until after November’s U.S. presidential election before deciding the future of the nuclear deal.

This article is published courtesy of the Voice of America (VOA)