In a move that could potentially complicate the future of the P5+1 nuclear deal, Germany, France, and Britain have all triggered the “dispute mechanism” within the deal, citing Iran’s refusal to hold itself to any specific limits on civilian nuclear enrichment.
Iran has been deliberately ignoring the limits, citing the three EU nations’ failure to comply with sanctions relief, in a bid to get talks going on fixing the deal, and to try to avoid anything that could break the deal outright.
Since President Trump withdrew the US from the deal, it has been struggling, as the US has blocked the EU nations from fulfilling their obligations, and so far the EU has proved unable to do anything about that. Iran has been very clear that they will return to 100% compliance in very short order if the EU nations guarantee them the sanctions relief that the nuclear deal promised.
Russia was critical of the nations triggering the mechanism, saying there was no grounds for it. Iranian officials similarly said it was “legally baseless and a strategic mistake” for them to do so.
Despite violating enrichment caps in recent weeks, Iran’s program has remained strictly civilian in nature, and would be well within literally any other nation’s legal rights under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Iran has gone out of its way to make the technical violations ones that would be easily reversible if a deal is worked out, but the mechanism suggests the EU nations aren’t necessarily looking to save the deal with further negotiations.
This is a direct assault on the JCPOA to try and kill it before Oct to try and prevent the UNSC sanctions from being lifted.
When I first heard just this headline I said to myself “finally! Europe is starting to get their act together.”
It never even occurred to me that EU countries might invoke that process against Iran, certainly this is the time when they would finally hold the US to account. How naive I was.
The Iran nuclear deal is essentially this: the US/EU promised to stop hitting Iran in exchange for them doing what we tell them to. They did and all the US learned was that hitting Iran can be effective at controlling them, thus the beatings continue with ever newer demands on Iran.
“We do this in good faith with the overarching objective of preserving the JCPOA”- E3
Total hogwash. They are doing what they know will destroy the deal, in completely bad faith, in capitulation to the abuser Trump, because Europe knows they would be next to be punished if they cross him one bit.
The EU did not trigger it for the blatant admitted violations by the US. That is why the agreement fell apart. They trigger it only against Iran, seeking free benefits of the deal without fulfilling the obligations they made under it. Bad faith, and the reason why Iran will end up with nukes — they obviously will be attacked unless they can defend themselves.
North Korea beware, you can’t do any deal either. Either you have the ability to defend yourself, or you will be attacked and murdered.
We can’t actually complain about triggering the dispute resolution process because that *is* part of the JCPOA. In fact, Iran’s original goal was precisely to have the EU convene the Commission to discuss the US withdrawal and Iran’s request to have the EU restore sanctions relief. The dispute resolution process is intended to deal with complaints by any party to the JCPOA. It starts with convening the Commission and proceeds from there eventually to the UN Security Council.
The problem, however, is that the EU obviously never intended to give Iran sanctions relief or uphold the JCPOA. So the dispute resolution process will now be used *against* Iran rather than against the US as Iran requested.
First, the EU dragged its feet on sanctions relief, by installing INSTEXT which was never an adequate relief mechanism as it only protected banks from US sanctions – and that ineffectively. It never protected EU corporations from direct US sanctions.
Then the EU constantly harped on Iran’s slow withdrawal from the provisions of the JCPOA – as was allowed by the JCPOA itself – claiming those modifications were “breaches” and constantly demanding Iran return to full compliance without getting any of the benefits of the deal.
So the EU never intended to uphold the JCPOA. The EU merely made noises as a case of CYA to avoid being blamed along with the US for the move towards war with Iran. Which is precisely what I predicted.
People need to stop falling for the words of utterly corrupt politicians.
Moon of Alabama also lists the ways the EU has been failing to uphold the JCPOA – and correctly notes that Iran requested the dispute resolution mechanism be initiated back in May, 2018.
Trump’s EU Poodles – Germany, Britain And France – Obey His Order To Kill The Nuclear Deal With Iran
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/01/trumps-eu-poodles-germany-britain-and-france-obey-his-order-to-kill-the-nuclear-deal-with-iran.html