By David E. Sanger, Steven Erlanger and Adam Nossiter, The New York Times: A senior Iranian delegation arrived in Paris on Monday to work out the details of a financial bailout package that France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, intends to use to compensate Iran for oil sales lost to American sanctions. In return for the money, Iran would agree to return to compliance with a 2015 nuclear accord.
Iranian press reports and a senior American official say that the core of the package is a $15 billion letter of credit that would allow Iran to receive hard currency, at a time when most of the cash it makes from selling oil is frozen in banks around the world. That would account for about half the revenue Iran normally would expect to earn from oil exports in a year.
Mr. Macron’s government has declined to provide any details of its negotiations with the Iranians, though it was the subject of discussion between the French president and President Trump at the Group of 7 summit last weekend.
While Mr. Macron and Mr. Trump gave no hint of their differences in public comments, administration officials say the French effort, which other European nations appear to support, is undermining the administration’s effort to exert what Mr. Trump calls “maximum pressure” on Tehran.
And it is far from clear that Mr. Trump would go along with any bailout: His national security adviser, John R. Bolton, has made it clear that he opposes such an agreement. So does Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who opposed the 2015 deal and pressed Mr. Trump to make good on his campaign promises to abandon it.
“This is precisely the wrong timing to hold talks with Iran,” Mr. Netanyahu said last week.
Without Trump administration support for the deal, it is not clear whether European banks would risk American sanctions by extending credit to Tehran or whether the credit might be extended by the European Central Bank, or France’s central bank, which would be more difficult for Washington to sanction.
If the talks, which French and Iranian officials began in Paris on Monday, are successful, Iran would return to the restrictions negotiated with the Obama administration four years ago. Mr. Trump abandoned that agreement in 2018, and the Iranians have stepped up pressure on Europe by gradually discarding the nuclear-production restrictions to which it had agreed.
“It was pretty much a technical discussion, and it went pretty well, on the whole,” a spokeswoman for the French foreign ministry said on Monday. But she gave no details and would not confirm that the centerpiece of the negotiation was the $15 billion letter of credit.
Iran has said that if the talks fail, it will escalate its nuclear activity starting Friday.
While it has not said what actions it might take, Iranian officials have hinted they are planning to raise their enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity — a level that takes them significantly closer to bomb-grade fuel.
The country may also install next-generation nuclear centrifuges that can produce fuel far more quickly than the older models that were running when Iran agreed in 2015 to sharply limit its production in return for a lifting of international oil sanctions.
Both steps would clearly violate commitments Iran made in the 2015 agreement. But after complying with the agreement for a year after Mr. Trump pulled out of the accord and resumed sanctions, Iran has said it would no longer be bound by an agreement that Washington is no longer respecting.
The letter of credit proposed by President Macron is part of a broader effort by the French, with help from Germany and other European powers, to save the 2015 agreement, even after Mr. Trump renounced it as “a disaster.” No issue has more clearly illustrated the foreign policy chasm between the Trump administration and its European allies.
As the administration complains of European sanctions-busting, Mr. Macron is trying to engineer a meeting at the United Nations later this month between Mr. Trump and President Hassan Rouhani of Iran.
Mr. Macron, American officials say, is betting that once Mr. Trump is engaged in a negotiation of his own with Iran, he will sense a chance to reach an agreement before the 2020 American elections — much as he has with North Korea.
A similar effort to set up a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Rouhani, at the United Nations in 2017, collapsed.
But the dynamics now are different, and Trump administration officials have often said they would meet the Iranians without preconditions.
Mr. Trump even seemed open to the idea of a financial bridge for the Iranians when he told reporters at the Group of 7 meeting that Iran may need a “short-term letter of credit or loan” that would “get them over a very rough patch.” His aides later said the president was envisioning such a financial package only after a new agreement was reached.
The Iranians have said that the United States would first have to return to compliance with the 2015 agreement before a new accord could be negotiated. But some Iranian elites now think a negotiation with Mr. Trump is necessary.
The deal Mr. Macron is exploring would provide Iran with the $15 billion line of credit in return for full compliance with the 2015 agreement and a return to normality in the Gulf, where Iran has been seizing oil tankers.
Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations, noted in an interview that “If France indeed pushes forward with this proposal, it’s likely to want not just a freeze on further enrichment from Iran but full compliance with the nuclear deal, and the opening of talks on regional issues.”
On Friday the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Iran has been enriching uranium up to a purity of 4.35 percent, just above the 3.67 percent allowed under the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
That enrichment level is still well within the ordinary limits for producing fuel for nuclear power plants, rather than weapons. Iran’s stockpile of fuel now also exceeds the 300 kilograms, or 661 pounds, allowed under the accord, according to the energy agency.
But all of those steps are easily reversible, Iranian officials say, and are intended to demonstrate that Iran will not stay within the agreement if the United States violates its commitments.
First published in The New York Times. Cartoon by Jeff Darcy.
Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.
Maybe Aytolkah Macron should charter a dozen 747's to fly the thugs of Tehran back to Paris. And for a change, let Iranians take a breath of fresh air.
Fix the problem instead of dangling a piece of carrots.
Our politicians had resisted pissing on the office of Presidency, tRump fixed that.
tRump is helping to make Russia great again
Reject occupation, If the bar code starts with 7 29 put it back on the shelf
Buy American, say NO to Chinese madeTrump
“The time is always right to do what is right” – Martin Luther King
Why is Iran so impoverished that cannot withstand sanctions for even one year? Why does the Iranian leadership sound so miserably desperate?
Here is an IRI regime basiji's comment left under the same article over there! Pathetic!
1. Trump will not make peace with Iran but will not go to war with Iran either, then Trump’s sanctions will stay in place till he get the F (F also stands for a Failed president among other things) out of White House in 2020. 2. Iran will not depend on what the Europeans promise and will wait till the next U.S. president is elected. Meanwhile Iran will develop more defensive weapons and push back against the Israelis and Saudis warmongering.
The Iran nuclear deal is dead – leaders at next week’s G7 summit should accept that once and for all
As G7 leaders gather in Biarritz this week, the ongoing disagreements over what to do with Iran will be at the top of the agenda. During his visit to the UK last week, national security adviser John Bolton urged British officials to adopt a harder line against Tehran, with the proposed Gulf Maritime Task Force suggesting this may have gained some traction.
The past year has seen European allies contort themselves in attempting to keep the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – i.e. the Iran nuclear deal – alive. Perhaps the penny will finally drop this weekend that not only is that not possible, but that it should no longer be attempted.
The JCPOA was fundamentally flawed from the start. The composition of the negotiating team completely excluded those on Iran’s doorstep, with policy set by governments thousands of miles away, in an approach reminiscent of a bygone colonial era. The funding of violent proxies, in the form of Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis was entirely overlooked in a way it never would have been had the Gulf states or Israel been at the table. In fact, the deal freed up extra funds which have flowed to these groups in ever greater volumes.
And what has the result been? A greater propensity for Houthi rocket launches at civilian targets in Saudi Arabia, the deployment of thousands of Hezbollah foot soldiers in Syria, and the constant bombardment of Southern Israel by Iranian funded Hamas rockets. Upon the JCPOA’s agreement, Barack Obama said he was “confident” that the deal would “meet the national security needs of the United States and our allies.'' By this measure alone it has demonstrably failed.
The current situation in the Gulf has seen Tehran actively escalate tensions. The seizing of the UK flagged Stena Impero by the Revolutionary Guard last month is part of a wider effort to blackmail European nations into keeping JCPOA funds flowing, as US sanctions continue to bite. If the Europeans think last weekend’s release of the Gibraltar tanker is going to placate Iran and bring an end to their ramping up of tensions then they’re severely misguided.
The Strait of Hormuz, the world’s busiest shipping corridor, now requires commercial shipping to be escorted by allied naval vessels. Combined with their funding of violent, terrorist extremists, it’s clear that since the JCPOA’s implementation, the national security interests of the United States’ allies in the region have far from improved.
Whatever the noises coming out of European capitals, it should now be clear that the JCPOA is dead. Even with their much-mooted Special Purpose Vehicle, London, Paris, Berlin and Brussels have limited power to encourage business to risk attracting the ire of American authorities by setting up in Iran. Far from encouraging the Europeans to fight their corner, Tehran’s latest actions have likely pushed them closer towards the Trump administration’s way of thinking.
These latest Iranian actions against shipping are the desperate acts of a nation whose funding sources for region destabilisation is drying up. Domestic unrest has long lain beneath the surface as Iranians enduring a sluggish economy and falling living standards see billions go abroad to Tehran’s network of proxies.
The imposition of sanctions may ultimately see the regime turn its attention to domestic matters, however, what we are seeing in the interim is a new, more direct phase of Iranian belligerence, which requires fewer resources and depends on a docile response from the international community.
The response to such belligerence cannot simply be further appeasement. That route has been tried and that route has failed. We can see first-hand the consequences the previous attempt at this approach has had, with Iranian armed Houthis continuing to cause death and destruction in Yemen and Hezbollah controlling large swathes of Syrian territory.
The security threat Iran poses to both regional and international security is real and urgent. Attempting to revive the failed JCPOA is not the way to combat them.
In Biarritz this week, European leaders have a choice. Do they continue to ignore reality and try and keep the nuclear deal alive with little more than warm words? Or, do they ally themselves with the United States in recognition that the threat Iran poses was never one adequately thwarted by the JCPOA? The choice is obvious; let’s hope that for G7 leaders the penny has finally dropped.
Dr Majid Rafizadeh is a businessman, board member, president, scholar and political scientist at Harvard University
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/iran-nuclear-deal-g7-summit-biarritz-trump-gibraltar-a9071221.html
خواب دیدین خوش باشه
Iran to develop nuclear centrifuges as US dismisses French plan to ease tension
The Guardian
Hassan Rouhani confirmed Iran would be taking step away from 2015 deal after US envoy questioned existence of French proposal
The US state department has shrugged off a French initiative aimed at defusing tensions with Iran, and stepped up economic pressure once more, offering a reward for information that helps disrupt Iranian oil smuggling.
A few hours later, Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said that the country would expand its development work on new centrifuges for enriching uranium, in a third phased step away from compliance with a 2015 multilateral nuclear deal, likely to escalate the standoff with the US even further.
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, had sought to mediate in the standoff, and tried at last month’s G7 in Biarritz to persuade Donald Trump to accept a confidence-building proposal, by which Iran would return to compliance with the 2015 deal in return for partial relief from US oil sanctions, and a $15bn credit line to finance oil sales.
Trump responded positively in Biarritz, suggesting he would accept the scheme if the US did not have to contribute to the credit line.
However, on Wednesday, the state department’s special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, called into question the very existence of the French proposal.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/04/us-iran-french-initiative-economic-pressure-brian-hook