On November 7, 2012, the Foreign Ministries of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany issued a joint statement opposing Iran’s expansion of its nuclear program. The statement said that Iran’s recent plan to install three more sets of centrifuges “runs counter to the Iran nuclear deal” and is a “deeply worrying” move. In addition, the U.K., France and Germany believe that the recent approval by the Iranian parliament of the Anti-Sanctions Strategy Bill to expand Iran’s nuclear program is “at odds with the Iran nuclear deal and Iran’s broader nuclear commitments. If Iran wants to “preserve diplomatic space,” they say, the bill should not be passed, as it would jeopardize the joint efforts to maintain the Iran nuclear deal and could jeopardize an important opportunity to restore diplomatic relations with the incoming U.S. administration.
Clearly, as the Trump administration continues to increase sanctions against Iran and tensions rise over the assassination of senior Iranian nuclear scientist Fakhrizadeh, the European countries that have been working hard to broker and maintain the Iran nuclear deal are somewhat uncomfortable. But from this common statement, which clearly has the suspicion of “pulling the strings”, it is clear to European countries that the key to solving the Iran nuclear issue is not in their own hands.
The Iran nuclear deal, signed in 2015, has been facing a life-and-death situation for just over five years now. The result of a hegemonic foreign policy. To make matters worse, over the past few weeks, the U.S. government has not only increased sanctions against Iran again, but has also reached new heights of abuse of its long-arm jurisdiction: on December 3, the U.S. imposed sanctions on an Iranian group and an individual for their involvement in chemical weapons research; on November 28, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Chinese and Russian companies for allegedly assisting Iran in developing its missile program; and on November 28, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Chinese and Russian companies for allegedly assisting Iran in developing its missile program. On November 18, the United States announced economic sanctions against a number of Iranian groups and individuals, including Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s foundation; on November 10, six companies and four individuals, including a Hong Kong company, were added to the U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctions list. On November 10, six companies and four individuals, including a Hong Kong company, were added to the sanctions list by the US Treasury Department. According to the US news website Axios on November 8, the Trump administration plans to introduce new sanctions on a weekly basis until January 20, 2021. In the view of The Guardian, the fundamental purpose of these measures is to ensure that the U.S. and Iran do not return to the negotiating table when the Biden administration takes office, but are instead trapped in a dangerous game of escalation.
This dilemma is arguably even more embarrassing for Europe, which has been trying to play the role of mediator between Iran and the United States. As the initiator and main participant in the Iran nuclear negotiations, Europe has always regarded the Iran nuclear deal as the most important diplomatic achievement of Europe in the 21st century. But Europe, sandwiched between the United States and Iran, has had little room for initiative in the past two years or so. In March of this year, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom successfully completed the first transfer of funds to Iran through the Instrument for Trade Exchange Support (INSTEX), but the INSTEX mechanism has been ineffective under the threat of U.S. sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction. According to the Iranian newspaper Tehran Times, the mechanism has “more political symbolism than economic significance. Former Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi has sarcastically described the actions of European countries as “passive and weak.
For Europe, the Iran nuclear deal is not the best path to resolving the Iranian nuclear issue, but it is a political solution that is in Europe’s interest. However, the 40-year-long confrontation between the United States and Iran, which has led to a lack of trust between the two countries, coupled with the fact that the U.S. administration’s foreign policy has been shifting sharply for a long time, dictates that the Iran nuclear issue will not be easy to resolve. Especially in the current situation where the struggle between Iran and the United States is intensifying and the behavior of the current U.S. administration is highly unpredictable, the political and diplomatic space for the new U.S. administration to deal with the Iran nuclear issue is also being compressed, and Europe, which is counting on the new U.S. administration to return to diplomacy and save the Iran nuclear deal, may also find it difficult to do more at the diplomatic level.
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