Germany’s Scholz Says Iran Deal Won’t Happen Anytime Soon

Scholz made the comments while receiving a visit from Israeli PM Lapid, who is strongly opposed to the agreement

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Monday that he doesn’t expect an agreement with Iran to revive the nuclear deal will be reached anytime soon. The comments from the current leader are the latest sign that the EU-mediated negotiations to restore the deal will fail.

Germany is a signatory to the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, along with Russia, China, France, and Britain. Scholz accused Iran of being responsible for the lack of an agreement.

He said that the European JCPOA signatories had “made proposals, and there is no reason now for Iran not to agree to these proposals, but we have to take note of the fact that this isn’t the case, so it certainly won’t happen soon, although it looked for a while like it would.”

Sholz made the comments after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who is visiting Germany. Lapid has been working hard to sabotage the negotiations between the US and Iran and said in Berlin that reviving the agreement would be a “critical mistake.”

Iran was unhappy with the European countries over the weekend after they accused Tehran of not taking the negotiations seriously in a joint statement. The European countries said this was due to Tehran’s call for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to drop its inquiry into uranium traces at Iranian nuclear sites.

Iran dismissed the statement as “unconstructive” and said that France, Germany, and Britain should be working to reach an agreement instead of criticizing Tehran amid negotiations.

Author: Dave DeCamp

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.