The United States is stepping up its actions against Iran

 

Washington accepted European Union invitation to meeting with Iran, decided to ease travel restrictions on Iranian diplomats and quashed UN assertion of reimposition of sanctions against Iran

 

The United States proceeded, Thursday, to three gestures with regard to Iran, against a background of will to relaunch the nuclear agreement of 2015 and after a warning with the Europeans in Tehran against a decision "dangerous" limit international inspections.

 

After a virtual meeting of the heads of French, British, German and American diplomacy, Washington announced that it had accepted an invitation from the European Union to talks in the presence of Tehran and the P5 + 1 (a group bringing together the United States, Germany, China , France, United Kingdom and Russia) "to discuss the best way forward regarding Iran's nuclear program," said State Department spokesman Ned Price.

 

 

A little earlier, the four Western powers had affirmed in a joint statement their objective of "seeing Iran return to full respect for its commitments" provided for by the 2015 agreement, in order to "preserve the nuclear non-proliferation regime. and ensure that Iran can never acquire a nuclear weapon ”. The press release is signed by Frenchman Jean-Yves Le Drian, German Heiko Maas, Briton Dominic Raab and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

 

Sanctions lifted

Joe Biden's administration in the process rescinded a unilateral proclamation made in September by Donald Trump's administration on a return to international sanctions against Iran. In a letter to the UN Security Council, obtained by Agence France Presse (AFP), the acting American ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Mills, indicates that the international sanctions "lifted by resolution 2231" of the UN in 2015 and confirming the nuclear agreement concluded the same year with Tehran “remain lifted”.

 

The September announcement by the Trump administration, which decided in 2018 to withdraw the United States from the agreement, was deemed null and void by a large majority of other members of the Security Council.

 

"Remove unnecessary obstacles to multilateral diplomacy"

The State Department finally announced Thursday the easing of restrictions on the travel of Iranian diplomats to the UN in New York. These restrictions had been considerably increased by the Trump administration. They required these diplomats and the head of Iranian diplomacy to be confined to a few streets around the UN headquarters with a very specific route to and from Kennedy airport.

 

The easing of the restrictions will allow them to return to a previous situation allowing them to move freely in New York and its surrounding areas. This rule, which also applies to the diplomatic missions of Cuba and North Korea, remains in force, said a State Department official.

 

"The idea is to take measures to remove unnecessary obstacles to multilateral diplomacy by amending restrictions on domestic travel which have been extremely restrictive," said the official.

 

Attempt of appeasement

The US-European meeting and Washington's triple move came as the Iranian government plans to restrict IAEA inspectors' access to non-nuclear facilities from Sunday, including military sites suspected of having nuclear activity.

 

Tehran has threatened to break free from new commitments made under the 2015 agreement unless the United States lifts its unilateral sanctions imposed since 2018 that are strangling the Iranian economy. France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States called on Tehran to assess "the consequences of such a serious measure, in particular in this moment of opportunity for a return to diplomacy".

 

Antony Blinken "recalled that, as President Biden had declared, if Iran returned to strict respect for its commitments (...), the United States would do the same and that they were ready to start discussions. with Iran in order to achieve this, ”their statement clarified.

 

Since Joe Biden came to power, the United States and Iran have passed the buck on the question of who should take the first step towards each other to revive the JCPoA agreement. Washington is asking Tehran to come back fully to the agreement while Iran has demanded that the United States first lift its sanctions. Since 2018, Tehran has gradually freed itself from the number of limits it had agreed to impose on its nuclear program.