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French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that Europe will not engage with the United States over Washington’s decision to reactivate sanctions against Iran, highlighting the growing transatlantic gap in how to deal with Tehran’s nuclear program.
Addressing the United Nations General Assembly, Macron attacked the “maximum pressure” policy of US President Donald Trump, saying that he had failed to stop Tehran’s interference in the region or ensure that he would not acquire a weapon. nuclear.
“We are not going to compromise the activation of a mechanism that the United States is not in a position to activate on its own after abandoning the agreement,” Macron said in a video message from Paris.
“This would undermine the unity of the Security Council and the integrity of its decisions, and would run the risk of further aggravating tensions in the region,” he warned.
‘We will not commit’ to Iran nuclear deal, says Frenchman Macron
The Trump administration says it is “rolling back” virtually all of the UN sanctions on Iran lifted under the Tehran nuclear deal, negotiated under former President Barack Obama but dropped by Trump in 2018.
Washington says it can reimpose the sanctions because it is still a “participant” in the deal, a position denounced by Europe as legally untenable.
Trump has insisted that one of the shortcomings of the nuclear deal is that Iran’s ballistic missile program or its interventions in other Middle Eastern countries have not been addressed.
In a nod to Washington, Macron said additional frameworks were needed to effectively address the Iranian nuclear program, adding that there must be a “capacity to complete” the 2015 deal.
This would guarantee that “we will provide responses to Iran’s ballistic activity, but also to its destabilization in the region.”
Macron insisted that France, along with its European allies Britain and Germany, would uphold their demand for “full implementation” of the Iran nuclear deal.
He added that “they will not accept the violations committed by Iran”, which has intensified its nuclear activity in response to the US withdrawal.
Iran is not a ‘bargaining chip’
Earlier, the president of Iran made a challenging and energetic speech to the UN General Assembly when he insisted that it would be the United States that would surrender to Iran’s resistance.
Hassan Rouhani spoke in a prerecorded speech just days after Iran’s currency fell to its lowest levels against the US dollar due to severe sanctions imposed by the Trump administration.
“The United States cannot impose negotiations or war on us,” Rouhani said, adding: “Life is hard under sanctions. However, life without independence is more difficult ”.
Rouhani compared the plight of his country to that of George Floyd, the African-American man who died in May after a white police officer in Minneapolis pinned him to the ground, pressing a knee to his neck. Floyd’s death sparked protests across the country in support of the lives of blacks.
Calling it “reminiscent of our own experience,” Rouhani said: “We instantly recognize the kneeling feet on the neck as the feet of arrogance on the neck of independent nations.”
Rouhani: ‘America cannot impose negotiations or war on us’
Rouhani insisted that his nation does not deserve sanctions and described the United States as “a terrorist and interventionist outsider” before referring to the 1953 US-backed coup that consolidated the shah’s control of Iran, ultimately pushing the country toward his Islamic Revolution and his hostility to the West.
US sanctions and the coronavirus outbreak have hit Iran’s economy. In March, Tehran requested a $ 5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, marking the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that Iran has requested such assistance.
Trump, in the midst of a contentious reelection race, has made pressure on Iran a cornerstone of his Middle East foreign policy. The US military presence in the Gulf has also increased.
“We are not a bargaining chip in US elections and domestic politics,” Rouhani said in his last speech to the UN assembly before the presidential elections scheduled for 2021.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP)
