Page 12 - MEOG Week 24

MEOG PoLiCy MEOG
indirectly their inability to act. ey should not think that a er the 60 days [outlined in the orig- inal ultimatum given my Iran for securing more nuclear deal economic bene ts], they will have another 60-day opportunity.”
e move by the US made at the beginning of May to try to force all Iranian oil exports— the lifeblood of Iran’s economy—out of world markets may prove to be the straw that broke the camel’s back if the Iranians do go ahead with an exit from the JcPOa in protest that it is not delivering anything like what it is supposed to.
Iran signed the accord in late 2015 to secure a shield against heavy sanctions in return for compliance with measures aimed at blocking any pathway Tehran could take to developing a nuclear weapon. Deal signatories France, Ger- many, the UK, Russia and china, and the Inter- national atomic Energy authority (IaEa) have always vouched that Iran has not breached the agreement, but demanding a broader, tougher nuclear deal, US President Donald Trump in May last year unilaterally pulled Washington out of the multilateral pact.
Responding to the plans outlined by Kamal- vandi, French President Emmanuel Macron urged Iran to be patient and responsible and the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said: “We will certainly not accept a unilateral reduction of obligations.”
“nuclear extortion”
e US accused Iran of “nuclear extortion”, with US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus saying: “ is is a pattern of 40 years of behaviour, it’s consistent with how the Iranian regime behaves. We would say to the interna- tional community that we should not yield to nuclear extortion by the Iranian regime.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has always been fiercely opposed to the JcPOa, called for international sanctions to be reimposed immediately “should Iran deliver on its current threats”.
“In any event, Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weaponry,” he warned.
The EU gave its assent to an unpublished timetable with Tehran last week to help ease trade between Iran and European nations. However, it is not clear whether the measures will come quickly enough and they may not be su cient to persuade Iran to rethink its strategy of chipping away at the nuclear deal.
European companies have pulled out of Iran in droves and have given up on trading with the country, fearing they may be hit by US secondary sanctions and perhaps shut out of the US market and world nancial markets.
us, uK blame iran for tanker attacks
ough conclusive hard evidence has not been presented, Washington and the UK have cited intelligence assessments in blaming last week’s attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on Iran, a country which is now facing huge di - culties in exporting its own oil given the threat of the US to hit any customers with reprisals.
Tehran has denied any involvement in the attacks. It has described them as a false ag oper- ation. e EU has yet to apportion blame.
Iran’s army chief, Maj Gen Mohammad Hos- sein Baqeri, said on June 17 that if Iran ever took the decision to block the export of all countries’ oil from the Gulf, by choking o the Strait of Hor- muz, it would do so transparently. It would not resort to deception or covert operations, unlike the “terrorist and deceptive” US, he added.
Given the tensions, and the recent bee ng up of US armed forces in the Gulf, many observ- ers fear that Washington and Tehran are on the verge of a military clash and that one miscalcula- tion, or action taken by foreign policy hawks on either side, could tip them over the edge.
Under the nuclear agreement, Iran is enti- tled to keep a stockpile of no more than 300kg (660lbs) of uranium hexa uoride enriched to 3.67)%. In his brie ng, Kamalvandi said that because Iran recently decided to quadruple its production of low-enriched uranium, it would theoretically pass that limit on 27 June.
e IaEa said last month that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was 174.1kg in late May.™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 24 18•June•2019