BICOM

French President Emmanuel Macron began a three-day visit to Washington DC yesterday, with the future of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal high on the agenda.

US President Donald Trump has been an outspoken critic of the deal and given its European signatories until 12 May to present proposals to improve the deal or the US will refuse to continue to waive sanctions on Iran. Macron told Fox News on the eve of his visit that he sympathised with Trump’s position and was “not satisfied with the situation with Iran”.

“I want to fight against ballistic missiles, I want to contain their influence in the region. My point is to say don’t leave now the JCPOA as long as you have not a better option for nuclear, and let’s complete it with ballistic missile and regional containment,” he added.

The French President also said he believes the US has a “very important [role] to play” in the Middle East, in order to ensure the international community does not leave control of Syria to Iran and its allies after the defeat of ISIS.

CNN yesterday reported a White House source who said that, despite European diplomacy, the US will leave the Iran deal unless Macron manages to “pull a rabbit out of the hat” and secure a concession from Iran.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, will visit Washington on Friday, discussed the JCPOA on Israel’s Channel 10 news on Sunday. Merkel said that although she understands that Israel’s government has concerns that “the nuclear deal with Iran does not provide the security Israel desires, we believe it’s better to have this agreement, even if it is not perfect, than to have no agreement”.

In a related development, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi yesterday. Tass News reported that Lavrov told the Chinese Foreign Minister: “We consider it very counterproductive to try to reduce to zero years of international work carried out via talks between the six major powers and Iran.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Zarif tweeted: “European leaders should encourage President Trump not just to stay in the nuclear deal, but more importantly to begin implementing his part of the bargain in good faith.”