Europeans siding with US, won’t go beyond words to save Iran deal: Analyst

An American author and former diplomat predicts that the European signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran will refuse to surpass mere words in their efforts to keep the agreement alive since they are actually siding with the US, which has been after killing the accord.

Michael Springmann made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Wednesday after Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif expressed Iran's resolve to go for the third stage of suspending its commitments under the agreement, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), if the European co-signatories keep failing to uphold their end of the bargain.

Springmann said that the European parties to the JCPOA —France, Britain and Germany — are actually siding with the US despite their claims to the contrary.

The Europeans, he added, claim that they are set to launch a vehicle for trade exchange with Iran — known as INSTEX — but they have actually “done nothing except ... a lot of talk.”

The financial mechanism “is nothing to trade or barter or arrange for sales of goods from either side between Iran and Europe,” he said. IMSTEX is “basically a way of implementing part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but they (the Europeans) have not done it and Iran has spent a year being very very patient taking instrumental steps with the maximum publicity.”

President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the JCPOA in May 2018, introducing old and new sanctions on Iran and seeking to scupper its implementation by the remaining signatories, including mainly Europe.

While being opposed to the US withdrawal and its attempts to hinder the agreement, the European signatories have been unable so far to ensure that Iran receives the economic benefits that it has been promised under the deal but which have been hampered by the US sanctions.

In May 2019, a year after the US’s exit, Tehran began reducing its commitments under the JCPOA on a stage-by-stage basis in response to Washington’s pullout with the aim of pushing the Europeans to honor their obligations.

PressTV-‘Iran to cut more JCPOA commitments if EU fails to act’

Foreign Minister Zarif says Iran will definitely suspend more of its commitments under the JCPOA unless the European co-signatories act to fulfill their end of the deal.

The ex-American diplomat also stressed that the Iranians are “very soberly reacting to the American and the British capitulation.”

Asked if Europe is determined to make a proper use of INSTEX, he replied, “No they are not. They talked about [it]... and that’s all they’ve done. There is no effort to include oil ... [and] Iranian metal production in INSTEX. There is no banking involvement and no barter arrangement.”

“The Europeans again huff and puff and say ‘oh yes we want to help with the deal, we want to keep the deal going,’ but they are not going to do anything in substance, they are not going to say ‘ok we will make INSTEX a real operating system,’” Springmann said.

The Iranians, he noted, have been honoring the JCPOA despite all the “harassment” and “pressure” from others.

“Basically, we are trying to make the Iranians bad boys, when in fact it is Britain, France, Germany and the United States who are still attacking Iran, who want to destroy the legitimate government of Iran one more time,” he added.

‘US not after peace in Mideast’

Asked if the US is really seeking peace in the Middle East, he said, “No, it is not. It is supporting the Saudis and their disastrous aggressive war on Yemen. It is backing the Israelis and the Saudis and the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council countries ... creating false-flag explosions and mines ... on tankers in the Persian Gulf.

The US, he added, is basically not after peace in the region, he added.

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