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EU chief diplomat to defend Iran deal

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LUXEMBOURG: The EU is to dispatch its chief diplomat Federica Mogherini to Washington next month to fight for the Iran nuclear deal after US President Donald Trump threatened to tear it up.


EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Monday joined a chorus of international support for the landmark 2015 accord, warning that Trump’s hardline stance jeopardised efforts to find a peaceful solution to the nuclear crisis with North Korea.


Trump caused alarm across the Atlantic with a belligerent speech last Friday in which he stopped short of pulling out of the agreement but warned he could do so at any time, restating his belief that the deal was letting Iran off the hook.


He left it to the US Congress to decide whether to reimpose sanctions that were lifted in return for Tehran abandoning its nuclear ambitions.


Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy head, said she would “be in Washington in early November” to urge US lawmakers not to pull out of the deal, known officially as the JCPOA, which was negotiated with Iran over 12 painstaking years by the US, Britain, France, China, Germany and Russia.


Ditching the deal when Tehran has repeatedly been certified as keeping up its end of the bargain by UN inspectors would send a signal to North Korea that negotiating with the international community is a waste of time, EU ministers fear.


“Clearly the ministers are concerned about the fact that messages on the JCPOA might affect negatively the possibility of opening negotiations or opening even the space for negotiations with the DPRK,” Mogherini told reporters after the bloc’s 28 foreign ministers held talks in Luxembourg.


German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Trump’s hardline stance risked dragging the world back to a “military confrontation” with Iran.


The Luxembourg meeting will sign off on a new package of EU sanctions aimed at punishing Pyongyang for its nuclear and ballistic missile tests and drying up revenue streams it needs for its weapons programmes. — AFP


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