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Iran: Nuclear deal talks fail to make progress

In the speech announcing his decision, Trump listed a number of reasons as to why the United States was leaving the deal. His decision was clearly based on the evidence that the Iran threat has not diminished.

Now that the United States has announced the reimposition of sanctions, Iranian regime is threatening to withdraw from the nuclear deal if Europe cannot guarantee the maintaining of the economic protection and benefits that it has become accustomed to since the deal took effect.

The sanctions will ensure that foreign businesses dealing with the Iranian regime will face consequences for continuing to engage with Iran. This has already led to a number of foreign enterprises pulling out of business deals with Iran.

The harshest of the sanctions will snap back in November, but the first round will be in August. The Trump administration has already warned that waivers will not be issued inline with their policy to put as much economic pressure on the Iranian government as possible.

After several hours of talks, leaders from Iran and five world powers (France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia and China) emerged after having made very little progress.

Federica Mogherini, the EU foreign policy chief, chaired the talks and read a statement after. She said: “Participants agreed to keep progress under close review and to reconvene the joint commission, including at ministerial level, as appropriate in order to advance common efforts.”

Mogherini also reiterated that the participants are keen to find a solution, mentioning in particular the shipping, trade and investment and banking priorities.

The Foreign Minister of Iran, Javad Zarif, said that all parties at the table agreed that the United States was isolating itself by leaving the nuclear deal. He also said that he wants the commitments discussed during the talks to be implemented in the coming weeks. He said: “All the commitments made today should be implemented before the August deadline… it is up to the leadership in Tehran to decide whether Iran should remain in the deal… the proposal was not precise and a complete one.”

However, his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian said that it is very unrealistic of Iran to propose a deadline in August. He said: “We are trying to do it [economic package] before sanctions are imposed at the start of August and then the next set of sanctions in November. For August it seems a bit short, but we are trying to do it by November.”

The French Foreign Minister also slammed the Iranian regime for its continuous threats regarding the future of the deal: “They must stop threatening to break their commitments to the nuclear deal.”

Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian regime’s president, also emphasised the time limit.

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