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the Russian foreign ministry told the Financial Times . “The more countries and continents involved, the more effective will the mechanism be as a whole.” The Russian foreign ministry was also cited as saying “the full potential of Instex will only be able to be deployed if it will be open to the participation of countries which are not members of the European Union”.
The ministry also said Instex was “a good tool in the implementation of projects . . . that the United States has strongly torpedoed”.
“If the encouraging statements by the EU . . . will be backed up by concrete steps and practical advances, including in relation to the use of Instex for servicing trading in Iranian oil, it will help stabilise the difficult situation created around the JCPOA,” it added.
2.3 Iran’s foreign minister offers US nuclear inspections deal during New York visit
Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said he offered the US a nuclear inspections deal during his visit to New York for UN business this week. Tehran has said it will formally and permanently accept enhanced inspections of its nuclear development programme in return for the permanent lifting of US sanctions, the Guardian wrote on the evening of July 18.
Just over an hour later, US President Donald Trump announced that a US warship had destroyed an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz. The USS Boxer, he said, took defensive action after the drone came within a 1,000 yards, ignoring multiple calls to stand down. Iran recently shot down a US drone it claimed was flying over Iranian waters, causing the US to plan a retaliatory air strike which Trump called off at the last minute.
Tensions between Iran and the US were earlier stoked on July 18 after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it seized a UAE-based ship and its crew of 12 for smuggling subsidised Iranian fuel. Zarif said the move was not provocative and was a routine matter.
Zarif’s offer is unlikely to make much headway with the Trump administration. It is attempting to use sanctions—which Iran says amount to an “economic war”—to force Tehran into big concessions on its nuclear and ballistic missile development programmes and on its support for militias in the Middle East which are variously the enemies of US Arab allies and Israel.
Zarif insisted, however, that his offer was “a substantial move”.
“It’s not about photo ops. We are interested in substance,” he told reporters at the Iranian mission to the UN in New York. “There are other substantial moves that can be made.”
He added: “If they [the Trump administration] are putting their money where their mouth is, they are going to do it. They don’t need a photo op. They don’t need a two-page document with a big signature.”
Zarif complimented Trump for showing prudence in calling off the retaliatory air strike, saying: “I believe we were few minutes away from a war. Prudence prevailed and we’re not fighting. So that gives reason for us to be optimists. If we work, if we are serious, then we can find a way forward.”
7 IRAN Country Report August 2019 www.intellinews.com