Iranian Minister Says Europe Has Two Options to Save the Nuclear Deal

(Bloomberg) -- Europe should either ask Washington to restore sanctions waivers for Iran’s oil or provide a credit line to the Islamic Republic if it wants to save the nuclear deal, the country’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said in an interview to state TV.

The two options have been relayed to French President Emmanuel Macron over the course of several recent phone calls with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, according to Araghchi. Both leaders have exchanged initiatives and ideas over how the 2015 agreement, which the U.S. abandoned last year, can be preserved, he said.

“What Mr. Rouhani has told Macron is that if Europe wants to preserve the nuclear deal then they must establish our ability to sell oil,” Araghchi said. “There are two options or solutions -- one is for them to go to the Americans and get waivers again for oil buyers so they can buy oil from Iran, or if they cannot do that, they themselves should buy that level of oil, using a credit line.”

Iran again pushed back against the idea of talks with Washington while U.S. President Donald Trump remains outside the deal and maintains sanctions on Tehran. On a visit to Kuala Lumpur, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said the Americans should "buy a ticket which gets them full compliance to the nuclear agreement" if they want negotiations with Iran, the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency reported, citing Malaysian television.

Araghchi said that Iran will come back to full compliance with the nuclear agreement’s terms once it can sell oil and have full access to its oil revenues.

Earlier this week, Trump said he would support an idea backed by Macron of extending what he called a “letter of credit” to Iran, secured by oil, to help the country meet short-term financial obligations.

--With assistance from Golnar Motevalli.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hari Govind in San Francisco at hgovind@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chakradhar Adusumilli at cadusumilli@bloomberg.net;Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net

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