Free Republic

Berlin — Six former European diplomats are calling on European governments to coordinate efforts to urge an incoming Biden administration to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, from which President Trump withdrew in 2018, and to agree with the regime in Tehran on steps for mutual compliance. The call comes amid fears that Friday’s assassination of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh could complicate attempts to restore the deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). “In response to reimposed U.S. sanction [sic] since 2018, Iran has increased its nuclear activities and continues to step away from its commitments under the...

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas arrived Saturday in Iraq to hold talks with Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi and President Barham Salih over the increasing tensions between Iran and the US. Maas’s Iraq trip was previously not announced due to security reasons.“There is a clear danger of miscalculations, misunderstandings, provocations leading to unforeseeable consequences in this highly tense region,” Maas said as he arrived in Baghdad. “The latest escalation requires us as European neighbors to intervene in favor of de-escalation and peaceful coexistence,” Maas said. “We cannot just seek dialogue; we must lead it, precisely where the differences seem insurmountable...

Former IAEA official says Israel, Gulf states, 'need to be worried' about Iran's emerging nuclear abilities. Olli Heinonen, who headed the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) security team and served as the organizations' deputy director general, on Wednesday morning told Army Radio that Israelis on the whole are not aware of the severity of the Iranian threat. "Israelis need to be worried, and the Gulf states also have reason for concern," Heinonen said. "How will you be able to ensure your security if Iran achieves nuclear abilities?" In the full interview, which will be aired Thursday morning, Heinonen said that...

Nations that struck the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, except for the United States, meet on Monday in what many diplomats fear may prove a quixotic effort to keep the agreement alive after U.S. sanctions targeting Iranian oil exports resume in November. Ministers from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Iran will gather in New York at 8 p.m. EDT on Monday (0000 GMT Tuesday) to grapple with U.S. President Donald Trump’s May 8 decision to withdraw from the deal and restore the full force of U.S. sanctions on Iran. Their delicate, and perhaps unrealistic, task is to build a case...

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Friday accused the administration of US President Donald Trump of being a threat to the Middle East and to the international community. “It is true that there is a real threat to our region and to international peace and security: That threat is the Trump Administration’s sense of entitlement to destabilize the world along with rogue accomplices in our region,” Zarif wrote on Twitter. “The US must start acting like a normal state,” he added. …

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday blasted former Secretary of State John Kerry’s meetings with Iranian officials since leaving office. "What Secretary Kerry has done is unseemly and unprecedented," Pompeo told reporters at the State Department, according to CNN. "This is a former secretary of state engaged with the world's largest state sponsor of terror and according to him, he was talking to them, he was telling them to wait out this administration," Pompeo added. "You can't find precedent for this in US history and the secretary ought not engage in this kind of behavior," Pompeo continued. "It's...

Iran awaiting European guarantees on the sale of Iranian oil and banking relations, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Saturday, according to the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA). […] “We are still waiting for Europe to take action on the sale of Iranian oil and the preservation of banking channels,” the Iranian foreign minister said. Zarif also defended the European Union’s decision on Thursday to provide €18 million ($21 million) in aid to Iran to offset the impact of U.S. sanctions, part of efforts to salvage the 2015 deal to limit Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. […] The top U.S. envoy...

Total, France’s largest energy company, announced on Monday it was pulling out of a $4.8 billion (€4.1 billion) Iranian gas field project, after admitting it was extremely vulnerable to the threat of US penalties against those doing business with Iran. The French group was one of three major energy companies set to help supply the state-of-the-art technology needed to tap into South Pars, the world’s largest natural gas field shared by Iran and Qatar. However, after abandoning the 2015 Iran nuclear accord in May this year, the United States has said it will reimpose sanctions on Iran in two phases,...

Russia cannot compel Iranian forces to quit Syria, Moscow's ambassador to Tel Aviv said on Monday, rebuffing Israel's long-standing demand that it should work to ensure their total withdrawal from the country. "They are playing a very, very important role in our common and joint effort to eliminate terrorists in Syria," Ambassador Anatoly Viktorov told Israel's Channel 10 television in an interview. "That is why, for this period of time, we see as non-realistic any demands to expel any foreign troops from the entirety of the Syrian Arab Republic," he said. "We can talk with our Iranian partners very frankly...

Russia’s ambassador to Israel said in an interview Monday his country cannot force Iranian forces to withdraw from Syria, despite Israeli calls for Iran to withdraw from the country. Speaking with Channel 10 news, Anatoly Viktorov said the Iranians are “playing a very, very important role in our common and joint efforts to eliminate terrorists in Syria. Viktorov said Russia can talk to its “Iranian friends” about a full withdrawal from Syria, as Israel demands, but “we cannot force them.” “The Iranian presence in Syria… is fully legitimate according to the UN principles and the UN charter,” he added. He...

To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas says Berlin is set to change its policy towards the US after Washington’s walkout on the Iran nuclear deal. In the comments published by the German Spiegel magazine on Friday, Maas addressed the diplomatic crisis that saw Donald Trump ignore the appeals of the USA’s European allies to keep the deal in place. While Germany intends to continue seeking cooperation with the US, Maas said his country would take a tougher stance towards Washington.“We are prepared to talk, negotiate and also fight for our interests where necessary,” Maas told Spiegel. “This goes for all levels,...

One unintended consequence of Donald Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Iran nuclear agreement has been to bring Germany and Russia together again. German-Russian relations had soured because of alleged Russian cyberattacks and the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea. But the US President’s hardline policy on around the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for Iran has intensified the search for common ground in Berlin and Moscow. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on May 18, and on Friday morning the two spoke on the telephone. “The importance of...

Germany’s foreign minister says his government will exert “considerable efforts” to protect the Iran nuclear deal despite Berlin’s misgivings about Iran’s ballistic missiles program and its involvement in the Syria conflict. In a visit to Jordan, Heiko Maas called for a “firewall” between the nuclear deal and Iran’s other activities. Under the deal, Iran agreed to curbs and inspections on its nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions. …

Setting aside Iran’s ballistic missile threats, support for terrorism and regional destabilization when crafting the nuclear deal was not a concession but “strategic thinking” on the part of the negotiators, former Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday. As he has done frequently since leaving office, Kerry used the opportunity of the Munich Security Conference to defend, at length, the Obama administration’s 2015 nuclear deal which President Trump has threatened to abandon. Kerry said that the U.S. recognized that the agreement being negotiated was not dealing with other problematic issues, including human rights abuses, missiles, arms shipments, support for Hezbollah,...

Former Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday blasted President Trump's decision not to re-certify Iran's compliance with the Iran nuclear deal, accusing Mr. Trump of jumpstarting an "international crisis." "President Trump's decision today is dangerous," Kerry said in a lengthy statement he posted to Twitter. "He's creating an international crisis. It endangers America's national security interests and those of our closest allies. "The president has polluted the negotiating waters and made it easier for legitimate concerns to be distinguished from back-door efforts to kill the deal," Kerry added. "What we've seen today lacks common sense and strategic thinking to...

The German government has warned the US against withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement. US President Donald Trump is expected to decertify Tehran’s compliance with the 2015 deal in a White House speech at 12:45 p.m. (16:45 UTC) on Friday. “We believe this agreement is an important instrument to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran,” German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Friday. “If … an important country like the United States comes to a different conclusion as appears to be the case, we will work even harder with other partners to maintain this cohesion,” he said. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is offering support to Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) amid a war of words between the latter and President Trump. "Sen. Corker is a valuable member of the Senate Republican caucus and he’s also on the Budget committee and a particularly important player as we move to the floor on the budget next week and he’s an important part of our team,” McConnell said Monday in Kentucky, according to the Associated Press. Asked about whether he agreed with Corker's criticism of Trump, McConnell sidestepped, adding: "[Corker is] an important part of our team and he's...

WASHINGTON — Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, charged in an interview on Sunday that President Trump was treating his office like “a reality show,” with reckless threats toward other countries that could set the nation “on the path to World War III.”In an extraordinary rebuke of a president of his own party, Mr. Corker said he was alarmed about a president who acts “like he’s doing ‘The Apprentice’ or something.”“He concerns me,” Mr. Corker added. “He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation.”Mr. Corker’s comments capped a remarkable day of...

Washington (CNN) - Sen. Chris Murphy said Sunday that a decision by President Donald Trump to pull the United States out of the Iran nuclear agreement would harm the US and benefit Iran. "The President is about to impose on himself and this country a dramatic self-inflicted wound because by pulling out of this agreement, Iran will go back onto a path to develop a nuclear weapon," the Connecticut Democrat said on CNN's "State of the Union." If the US exits the agreement, Iran would still receive sanctions relief from other nations party to the deal, and the move would...