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46 I Eurasia bne February 2020
Rouhani (right) met Syrian Prime Minister Imad Khamis in Tehran on January 15.
Iran pours scorn
on “strange offer” of “Trump deal” to replace nuclear deal
Trump plan in action. If you take the wrong step, it will be to your detriment. Pick the right path. The right path is to return to the nuclear deal.”
Rouhani also warned that European soldiers in the Middle East could be in danger after the UK, France and Ger- many – which along with Iran, Russia and China are the remaining signatories of the JCPOA following Trump’s decision in May 2018 to unilaterally withdraw the US from the accord – this week triggered a dispute resolution mechanism in the nuclear agreement that could lead to
the reintroduction of UN sanctions on Tehran. “Today, the American soldier is in danger, tomorrow the European sol- dier could be in danger,” Rouhani said, adding: “American soldiers today are not secure in the region... We don’t want there to be insecurity in the world. We want you to go from here, but not with war. We want you to leave the region intelligently and it’s to your benefit.”
The day also saw the UK ambassador to Tehran leave Iran following his Janu- ary 11 detention for three hours after
he attended a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Ukrainian passenger plane downed by an Iranian missile battery in an apparent case of misidentification. Iran’s official IRNA news agency said the diplomat had left after being given what it described as “prior notice”. The report did not elaborate, but the ambassador, Rob Macaire, had already been described as a “persona non grata” by a spokesman for Iran’s judiciary. The British Foreign Office insisted that Macaire’s trip to Lon- don was "routine, business as usual" and was planned before his arrest. Macaire
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Iran has dismissed the proposal pushed by the UK that a “Trump deal” should replace the nuclear deal. The country’s president, Hassan Rouhani, on January 15 described it as a “strange” offer, noting that US President Don-
ald Trump has gained a reputation for always breaking promises.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on January 14 swung behind the idea of a “Trump deal” to resolve the standoff between Iran and the US.
Meanwhile, the severe damage the American “economic sanctions war”
on Iran is inflicting on the Iranian economy was underlined as the Inter- national Institute of Finance (IIF), a finance industry body, said the Islamic Republic’s foreign reserves could drop to $73bn by March, marking a loss of almost $40bn in two years. The Iranian economy shrank by 4.6% in Iran’s 2018- 2019 fiscal year and the contraction is
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expected by the IIF to deepen to 7.2% in the 2019/2020 fiscal year.
“I don’t know how he thinks”
In a televised speech to his cabinet, Rouhani addressed Johnson’s sug- gestion that the 2015 nuclear deal (formally known as the Joint Compre- hensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) could be replaced by an agreement drawn up
“This Mr. Prime Minister in London, I don’t know how he thinks. He says let’s put aside the nuclear deal and put the Trump plan in action. If you take the wrong step, it will be to your detriment”
by “great deal maker Trump”. He said: “This Mr. Prime Minister in London,
I don’t know how he thinks. He says let’s put aside the nuclear deal and put the
had argued that he departed the vigil where he was quite normally paying
his respects as soon as he heard the start of a protest chant.