EU Slams Pompeo’s Iran Strategy: It Won’t Make Region Safer From Nuclear Threat

• EU Slams Pompeo’s Iran Strategy: It Won’t Make Region Safer From Nuclear Threat
  by https://sputniknews.com/
  US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s promise to slap the “strongest sanctions in history” on Tehran after Washington’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal has prompted an outcry from European officials.
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  The EU’s foreign policy Chief Federica Mogherini, commenting on the possible unprecedented sanctions against Iran pledged by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, has warned that there is “no alternative” to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal.
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  “Secretary Pompeo’s speech has not demonstrated how walking away from the JCPOA has made or will make the region safer from the threat of nuclear proliferation or how it puts us in a better position to influence Iran’s conduct in areas outside the scope of JCPOA,” Mogherini stressed.
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  She recalled that the Iran nuclear deal is “the result of more than a decade of complex and delicate negotiations”, touting the JCPOA as “the best possible outcome, striking the right balance.”
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  “This deal belongs to the international community, having been endorsed by the United Nations Security Council. The international community expects all sides to keep the commitments they made more than two years ago,” Mogherini pointed out.
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  She also underscored Iran’s adherence to the JCPOA, reiterating that the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed ten times that Iran had delivered on “all its nuclear related commitments” in line with the deal.
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  UK: ‘Prospect of a New Jumbo Treaty’
  According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said during a meeting with his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers’ summit in Argentina that the exit from the Iran nuclear deal would be a catastrophe.
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  While Johnson was quoted by Beijing as saying that the “sides should make efforts in order to let the deal live, the Chinese forein minister emphasized his country’s firm stance on the issue and affirmed readiness to work with all interested parties.
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  Just hours before Pompeo’s speech on Iran, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson declared that Washington’s plan to tighten the screws against the Islamic Republic won’t work.
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  “If you try now to fold all those issues — the ballistic missiles, Iran’s misbehavior, Iran’s disruptive activity in the region and the nuclear question — if you try to fold all those into a giant negotiation, I don’t see that being very easy to achieve, in anything like a reasonable timetable,” Johnson said. He warned that after Washington’s exit from the Iran nuclear deal, “the prospect of a new jumbo Iran treaty is going to be very, very difficult.” At the same time, he noted he is “not totally pessimistic about the situation.”
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  “In the end, there is a deal to be done that gives Iran a greater economic access to the West, but also constrains it. […] I think in the end, we will get back to the kind of additions to the JCPOA that we initially envisaged, but it may take a long time,” Johnson underlined.
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