On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said that any new nuclear negotiations with Iran would be “strict” and should include Saudi Arabia. His comments were first reported by Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya TV.
Macron said it was a mistake not to include other regional countries in talks when the JCPOA was first negotiated in 2015. The Saudis and other Gulf countries, like the UAE and Bahrain, are looking to be involved with the Biden administration’s Iran strategy and oppose the JCPOA as it is.
Earlier this week, a French official from Macron’s office said Iran must comply with the JCPOA before the US lifts sanctions. The Biden administration has since made clear this is the official US position.
While President Biden had previously said he would work with Iran to revive the JCPOA, pressure from allies like Israel, the Gulf states, and France will make it more difficult. Iran’s stance is that Biden must unconditionally lift sanctions for Iran to return to compliance. In order to do that, Biden would have to make a strong move against these US allies.
In a sign that all hope is not lost for the deal, President Biden appointed Rob Malley to be the US envoy to Iran. Malley was a key architect of the JCPOA and led negotiations to secure the deal. Reports say Malley spoke with European countries, including France, on moving forward with Iran.
France has become a sad country. Macron has placed himself into an unenviable position of doing dirty geopolitical work, and France will not be beneficiary.
What is the purpose of ordering Iran to comply with the Agreement, justifying US withdrawal, and signaling well in advance that negotiations will be unproductive. Inclusion of new negotiators — like Saudis or Bahrain is simply a smokescreen to include Israel. And if so, why not include countries very much affected by the instability, like Iraq, Turkey and Kuwait? Why not Pakistan? Why exclude Iran’s neighbors?
Of course, neither US nor France care about resolving issues, they care only about maintaining instability. Maintaining chaos and preventing the development of the region. This is costly game.
Can France afford it? Economy of France has been devastated by COVID-19, as it relies heavily on tourism. What rewards does Macron expect from wading into ME quagmire? His stock has been shorted a while ago.
Agree. The US position clearly wants “no” for an answer. Macron is being used, and “la gloire”, to lend a patina of civilisatrice to a brutal act of Zionist aggression. Paul Ricoeur, you’ve trained another whore.
The US is not a party to the Iran nuclear deal. France should be demanding freedom from US indirect sanctions that obstruct an independent EU foreign policy and are hurting french business.
I think Macron would make a good pet for us.
Macron is very unpopular in his own country. His party is described as democratric and left leaning, yet Macron was the architect of austerity measures under his predecessor. He is seen by many as a latter day Napolean, a strutting peacock, full of his own deluded self importance. I thought Sarkozy was bad, Macron is far worse.
Napoleon was far better than Macron.
I think you may be right John, Bony was loved by the people.
Another has-been European ex-empire still strutting around as if their opinion on these matters mattered. The EU three showed their irrelevance when they failed to counter US’s extraterritoriality on the Iran deal.
To reflect current realities, the UN SC permanent 5 should drop the UK and France and add India and Brazil.
A fascist state like Brazil should never be considered for such a position.
“Fascist?” Are you serious? Communist China and Soviet Russia (not the mention invade everywhere US and UK) were pillars of the UN but democratic nations that sometimes vote right (I’m not a fan of Modi, either) is somehow verboten?
I agree with Macron and the other regional countries should be involved. But to qualify they must live under the same terms of the JCPOA that Iran does. So if Israel, and those other regional actors, want to open their countries to the intrusive IAEA inspectors, similar to Iran, and agree to a nuke free region, welcome aboard!! Oh, and there will be follow up negotiations regarding ballistic missiles which the regional actors should also be invited to with the same conditions that will be demanded of Iran.
Nice point, but it is not what Macron said or meant.
No doubt. My comment was a fantasy I would like to see come true.
The chances of Israel giving up even one nuke are NIL ,as for Macron and the EU as a whole they said they would help Iran get round US sanctions and didn`t so the EU is no better than the US . IMO Iran should aquire a nuke as fast as possible and put Israel back in it`s box.
I predict that Iran would not accept some local petty dictators at the table, if there is to be a table at all. FM Zarif must accommodate the hardliners in Tehran, for one thing. Zarif is quite clear on Iran’s position here.
Washington is starting to fold….
President Biden is eyeing an urgent restoration of the international nuclear deal with Iran as a first step to deal with a range of threats from that country, new national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Friday, suggesting a faster timeline than the administration has previously outlined. . .WaPo, here
That is what we are meant to believe by those who wanted to elect Biden. However, it is not what is true of the hawks around Biden, nor really of the hawk Biden himself.
A range of threats from Iran ? , check your history books for the last time Iran invaded and destroyed another country , then check how many countries the US has invaded and destroyed , then tell us who the real threat is , just to add most of the M/E countries Dictators would have been thrown out years ago if it were not for US support.
Macron has these fits of total foolishness. This is just one more.
Macron’s situation is pregnant with many lessons . Muslim countries should learn it . Remaining beholden to one country is not good for any country involved. Like Umma has lost meaning in this age of duplicity dynastic rule nepotism and personal level barbarism, so has the NATO countries tendency and imagined obligations to dance to the tune of USA . Pakistan Afghanistan Tunisia and anyone who can disentangle from Saudi-UAE ,should do so and prepare to to do so soon.