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French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that
he would expect U.S. President Donald Trump to pull the United States
out of the Iran nuclear deal based on his past statements while stressing
he does not know what Trump will decide on May 12.
French President Emmanuel Macron called on the United
States on Wednesday not to abandon the Iran nuclear deal as Western
envoys said Britain, France and Germany were nearing a package that
seeks to persuade U.S. President Donald Trump to save the pact.
Iran has arrested a British-Iranian dual citizen who
traveled to Tehran from London on an invitation to speak at an
academic workshop, according to friends of his family and
human-rights organizations. The arrest of Abbas Edalat, a professor
of computer science and mathematics at Imperial College in London,
comes at a time of particularly tense relations between Iran and the
West over the fate of the nuclear deal.
NUCLEAR DEAL
The European Union's foreign policy chief said Wednesday
that Europe would stick to the existing Iran deal, apparently
distancing herself from a French proposal for a new agreement to
address the concerns of the Trump administration.
The United States is not seeking to reopen or
renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal but hopes to stay in it to fix its
flaws with a supplementary agreement, U.S. non-proliferation envoy
Christopher Ford said on Wednesday..
A top U.S. foreign policy official says the Trump
administration seeks to add to the nuclear deal with Iran, rather
than eliminate it. Brian Hook, the State Department's policy planning
director, tells NPR the goal is now a "supplemental
agreement" that imposes new restrictions on Iran and "would
address a lot of the problems that we have with the existing
deal."
The debate over the Iranian nuclear deal has so far
largely neglected a factor that potentially gives the United States
leverage: the deteriorating economic and political situation in Iran.
French President Emmanuel Macron's trip to Washington is
just the public face of what's been an intensive effort by European
leaders to rescue the nuclear deal with Iran from U.S. President
Donald Trump. Fully focused on the Trump threat, they may be missing
another one emerging in Tehran. Macron's invocation of a new, more
comprehensive accord won't count for much without some kind of
signoff from Iran -- which is starting to lose faith in the existing
version.
The Iran nuclear deal may have more time than you think.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani yesterday rejected any
hopes of rewriting a nuclear deal with world powers, after the
leaders of the United States and France called for a new pact
covering Tehran's missile programme and regional interventions.
French President Emmanuel Macron is in Washington this
week on a charm offensive with a mission: to convince his counterpart
Donald Trump to keep the Iran nuclear deal intact. But while the two
leaders have developed what appears to be an affable friendship,
analysts said this is unlikely to save the 2015 agreement, officially
known as the JCPOA, which was signed by six world powers and Iran to
lift international sanctions on the latter in exchange for
restrictions on its nuclear program.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
Iran's supreme leader called on Muslim nations to unite
against the United States, saying Tehran would never yield to
"bullying," state television reported on Thursday.
Oliver Stone, making his first-ever visit to Iran, says
the United States is a global "outlaw" that has made a mess
of the Middle East.
ECONOMIC NEWS
There is growing consensus in the oil market that Mr.
Trump will pull out of the deal, triggering a reimposition of
economic sanctions that would frustrate the Islamic Republic's oil
output and limit global supply. Such sentiment pushed Brent crude
above $75 a barrel for a time yesterday for the first time in over
three years. However, Mr. Trump, meeting with French President
Emmanuel Macron at the White House Tuesday, also signaled interest in
an unspecified new deal to rein in Tehran. Those comments sent prices
tumbling, with Brent closing down 1.14%.
SANCTIONS
The Justice Department is investigating whether Huawei
Technologies Co. violated U.S. sanctions related to Iran, according
to people familiar with the matter, a move that opens a new avenue of
scrutiny of the Chinese cellular-electronics giant on national
security grounds.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
A mummy discovered near the Iranian capital "most
probably" belongs to the father of the last Shah of Iran, his
family has said.
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