Tillerson: US, EU Working to ‘Fix’ Iran Nuclear Deal

US, EU Nations Seek 'Side Agreement' on Iran's Nuclear Program

In comments over the weekend, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson revealed that “working groups” have been established between the United States and the three European powers of the P5+1, Britain, France, and Germany, on revising the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran.

This is the first time there’s been any confirmation of any nation other than the US being willing to even consider changing the deal. Indeed, Iran has long insisted that there was no possibility of a renegotiation.

Signs are that the way around this is for the US and EU nations to come to some sort of “side agreement” that changes the terms of the deal, and then demands that the remaining parties accept them unconditionally. This would include a sideline deal that even though the P5+1 agreement explicitly allows Iran a less restrictive civilian nuclear program after a number of years, the US and EU nations would forbid Iran from having that ever.

This raises another question, about whether the US and the EU nations are really able to have “negotiations” themselves, since President Trump started this whole demand for “fixing” the deal with a broad series of demands, and it’s not clear Trump is willing to accept anything short of them giving him everything he wants.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.