France's Le Drian Visits Tehran to Save Nuclear Deal From Trump
France's Le Drian Heads to Iran to Save Nuclear Deal From Trump
(Bloomberg) -- French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian spent Monday in Tehran in a European drive to salvage the nuclear deal with Iran that President Donald Trump is threatening to scuttle and the Islamic Republic has said it may be forced to abandon.
Le Drian’s trip to Iran -- the first by an official in President Emmanuel Macron’s administration -- was a balancing act: He needed to reassure Iran of the European commitment to delivering economic benefits that were promised in the 2015 deal in return for curbing its nuclear program. But he also had to appease Trump, who’s vowed to back out of the multinational pact if Europe doesn’t help “fix” its “flaws.”
Public comments suggested both sides remained dug in, with Europeans requesting concessions that Iran’s foreign minister dismissed as “political games” by the U.S.
The trip was a foreign policy test for Macron, who’s managed to cultivate a closer relationship with the “America First” president than have other European leaders.
It will signal whether “France is independent and its relations with Iran are based on its own national interests rather than aligned with U.S. policy,” said Clement Therme, a research fellow with London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies who focuses on Iran.
Iran’s Rebuff
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told Le Drian Monday that Europe is playing into the hands of the U.S. and its “irrational and political games,” the official Islamic News Agency said after their meeting. “Europe can play a more constructive role in preserving” the nuclear deal, by putting “pressure on the U.S. to carry out its commitments” under the agreement and not allow it to make “illegal demands on top of its own violations,” Zarif was quoted as saying.
For his part, Le Drian said there’s “still much work left to do with Iran” on curbing its ballistic missile program, according to Agence France-Press.
In a phone call on Sunday, Macron’s office said he told Iranian President Hassan Rouhani that while his country remains committed to the nuclear deal, it has “demands about problems that are not within the accord,” including Iran’s missile program and its regional activities, especially in Lebanon. “He underlined our expectations for a constructive contribution from Iran for a regional de-escalation and to work toward resolving crises in the Middle East,” according to the statement.
U.S. officials have been holding intensive talks with their counterparts in France, Germany and the U.K. -- which joined Russia, China and the U.S. in crafting the accord with Iran -- on how to address Trump’s concerns. The effective deadline is May 12, the next time Trump is due to decide whether to continue waiving sanctions under a U.S. law.
While Trump has called, in effect, for reopening the nuclear deal by making permanent some restrictions on Iran’s uranium enrichment that expire in the coming years, Europeans are focusing on complaints that aren’t within the four corners of the accord -- including the ballistic missile program and Iran’s expanding involvement in regional strife.
Willing to Bend?
“The main thing the French need to tell Iran is that we are trying to create conditions whereby this deal can be sustained with U.S. participation,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, senior policy fellow at the European Council of Foreign Relations.
Iranian and European officials have held a series of talks in the past month to gauge areas of mutual concern, said two European diplomats who were briefed on the meetings. Iran has signaled some willingness to limit its ballistic-missile testing and would be open to discussing its regional role, they said.
Le Drian’s trip to Tehran coincides with a visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu said Sunday that his first priority in talks with Trump at the White House on Monday will be Iran’s “aggression, its nuclear aspirations, and its aggressive actions in the Middle East in general and on our borders.” Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.
France, the U.K. and Germany -- known as the E3 -- joined the U.S. last week in condemning Iran’s alleged shipments of missiles to Houthi rebels in Yemen. At the same time, the European Union’s Ambassador to the U.S., David O’Sullivan, has cautioned that the EU wouldn’t support reimposing trade sanctions lifted under the nuclear deal under a different rationale.
“We will not do anything which jeopardizes the deal, which is absolutely fundamental to Europe’s national security,” O’Sullivan said in a meeting with Bloomberg News editors and reporters in Washington.
Iran’s internal political rivalries will pose a challenge to Le Drian’s efforts to find a compromise, said Ali Vaez, an Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group.
“The Rouhani administration lacks the political capital to do so, and the White House is in no mood to put more incentives on the table in return for more Iranian concessions,” Vaez said. “The only possibility for making incremental progress is de-escalating some of the regional conflicts that the Europeans could use to demonstrate to Washington that engagement bears more dividends than pressure.”
So far, Iran has adhered to the terms of the nuclear deal, as verified by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in 10 reports since the pact was implemented in January 2016. But the economic benefits it’s receiving in return have fallen short of expectations, even after energy and financial sanctions were lifted. Major banks and companies have avoided engaging with Iran from fear of running afoul of remaining U.S restrictions or seeing a “snapback” of sanctions given Trump’s threats.
Iran may be forced to leave the deal if the “destructive atmosphere” created by Trump doesn’t end, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in February. Tehran “cannot remain in a deal in which there is no benefit for us,” he said.
Europeans, led by French companies, have signed some major deals with Iran after a decade of strict sanctions.
Auto Deals
In 2016, French automaker Peugeot SA linked up with Iran Khodro Co. to refurbish a factory near Tehran that began producing a crossover model last year. Renault SA announced a joint venture in August 2017 to produce cars. National carrier Iran Air agreed on a deal of about $10 billion deal to buy 100 Airbus SE planes in December 2016. And energy giant Total SA is helping develop Iran’s South Pars gas field.
But most companies without a strong reason to be in Iran are staying away, said Ardavan Amir-Aslani, a lawyer at Cohen Amir-Aslani in Paris who handles Iranian affairs.
“There’s not a single major bank operating in Iran,” Amir-Aslani said. “There’s no large French, German or Italian bank there. Just weeny banks. There’s no project finance. The banks are all afraid they will be sanctioned by the U.S. Even if the risk is small, they think it’s too big a risk.”
--With assistance from Jonathan Ferziger and Ladane Nasseri
To contact the reporters on this story: Kambiz Foroohar in New York at kforoohar@bloomberg.net, Ladane Nasseri in Dubai at lnasseri@bloomberg.net, Gregory Viscusi in Paris at gviscusi@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert
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