MPs from UK, France, Germany urge US not to scrap Iran deal

In a joint statement published in the Guardian, Der Spiegel, the New York Times and Le Monde, they urged a White House rethink before the 12 May deadline set by Trump to pull out of the deal, known as the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA), unless Europe can come up with a new policy that will meet his concerns, The Guardian reported.

“The US government threatens to abandon the JCPOA, although Iran fulfills its obligations under the agreement,” the letter said. They warn that “an exit from the US would have fatal consequences”.

France, Germany and the UK negotiated the landmark deal in 2015 that lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for strict limits on its nuclear programme, and are using all their leverage to try to persuade Trump that the deal is salvageable.

“The short-term impact of this move would put an end to Iran’s nuclear programme controls, which could provide a new source of devastating conflict in the Middle East and beyond,” it said.

“Leaving the agreement would diminish the value of all the promises and threats our countries make,” the parliamentarians said.

They added that if the deal broke down it would be nigh on impossible to assemble another grand coalition built around sanctions against Iran.

Trump is concerned by an Iranian ballistic missile programme, the speed with which Iran could obtain a nuclear capability at the end of the 10-year deal and more broadly Iran’s interventionist stance around the Middle East ---notably in Yemen, Lebanon and Syria.

The campaign was organised by the German Green MP Omid Nouripour, the French MP Delphine O of Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche! movement, and the British Conservative MP Richard Bacon.

Intensive contacts on a near-daily basis are under way between British and French diplomats who are seeking to come up with a formula, ideally ahead of a meeting next week between Macron and Trump in the White House. The diplomats are looking to see whether the current inspection system agreed under the deal could be extended to military sites, laboratories and universities.

EU diplomats were not able to agree a new round of sanctions against Iran at their meeting on Monday, partly due to Italian objections that the sanctions might damage Russia.

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