Plane Carrying Iran Scientist Jailed in US Has Taken Off: Zarif

Iran's foreign minister said Tuesday that a plane had taken off from the United States carrying scientist Sirous Asgari after his apparent release from a US prison.

"Good news, a plane carrying Dr. Sirous Asgari has taken off from America. Congratulations to his wife and family," Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote in a post on his Instagram account.

Asgari was accused by a US court in 2016 of stealing trade secrets while on an academic visit to Ohio, but the 59-year-old scientist from Tehran's Sharif University of Technology was acquitted in November.

The academic told British newspaper The Guardian in March that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was keeping him in a detention centre in Louisiana without basic sanitation and refusing to let him return to Iran despite his exoneration.

The US agency database still listed Asgari as being detained in the state of Mississippi.

The State Department did not immediately respond to AFP's request to comment on his apparent release.

On Monday, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi had said Asgari's case was closed and that he was likely to return to the Islamic republic within two or three days.

Both Iran and the United States hold a number of each other's nationals and they have recently called for them to be released amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Iran is battling what is the Middle East's deadliest outbreak of the virus, while the US has reported the highest total number of deaths worldwide from the disease.

Iran is holding at least five Americans and the US has 19 Iranians in detention, according to a list compiled by AFP based on official statements and media reports.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington escalated in 2018, after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from a landmark nuclear agreement and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.

The two have at times swapped prisoners despite having no formal diplomatic relations.

In December, Iran freed Xiyue Wang, a US academic, in exchange for scientist Massoud Soleimani and said it was open to further swaps.

Americans and dual nationals currently known to be held by Iran include US Navy veteran Michael R. White, Siamak Namazi along with his father Baquer, Morad Tahbaz, Gholam Reza Shahini, and Karan Vafadari.

Asgari is one of the 19 held by the US, most of them dual nationals and charged with evading sanctions by either exporting goods to Iran or using the US financial system.

Photo: IRNA

Despite U.S. Sanctions, Iran Expands Its Nuclear Stockpile

By Colum Lynch

Two years after President Donald Trump announced the U.S withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, Tehran has resumed its enrichment of uranium, restarted research and development on advanced centrifuges, and expanded its stockpile of nuclear fuel, cutting in half the time it would need to produce enough weapons-grade fuel to build a nuclear bomb.

“Iran is manifestly closer to being able to produce a nuclear weapon than they were two years ago,” said Richard Nephew, who participated in negotiations on the landmark nuclear deal in 2015.

While there is no evidence Tehran is preparing a dash for a nuclear weapon, the Iranian advances raise questions about the success of the White House’s so-called “maximum pressure” campaign, which is aimed at forcing Iran through the imposition of ever more stringent sanctions to accept greater constraints on its political and military support for regional militias and the development of its ballistic missile program.

The effort—which has severely damaged Iran’s economy—has yet to temper Iran’s nuclear ambitions, instead prompting Tehran to resume nuclear activities prohibited by the nuclear pact, which is formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. It has also eroded Washington’s credibility even among many of its traditional allies and placed increasing strains on America’s diplomatic partnerships.

This month, the U.S. State Department publicly unveiled a diplomatic effort to secure a tangible result from its pressure campaign in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election—an agreement by the U.N. Security Council to extend a conventional arms embargo that is scheduled to expire on Oct. 18, just weeks before the election. Back in February, the United States privately circulated elements of a draft Security Council resolution extending the arms embargo to Britain, France, and Germany, hoping to rally support for the initiative.

The United States received a chilly response from the Europeans, who argued that the resolution was all but certain to be vetoed by China and Russia, which plan to sell arms to Iran once the embargo expires. The Europeans say they share Washington’s concerns about Iran’s ballistic missile programs and its support for proxies, including Hezbollah and other militias spread across the Middle East. But they fault Washington with undermining a landmark nuclear pact that enjoyed broad international support and which they believed had succeeded in constraining Tehran’s nuclear program, until the United States ditched it.

Last week, Brian Hook, the U.S. special envoy for Iran, warned that if the council failed to agree to extend the embargo, Washington could deliver a potentially lethal blow to the nuclear agreement by triggering a provision that would allow any of the initial seven signatories to reimpose—or snap back—all Iran sanctions, including the conventional arms embargo, that were in force before the nuclear pact was concluded. Iran has warned that if the sanctions are reimposed, it will likely pull out of the nuclear pact, end international inspections of its nuclear energy program, and withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Such a move by Washington would raise complex political, diplomatic, and legal questions about whether the United States, which withdrew its participation in the nuclear deal on May 8, 2018, has the legal right or the moral authority to trigger the snapback provision. Under the terms of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the nuclear deal, any participant in the nuclear pact has the right to single-handedly snap back the previous sanctions. Trump administration officials contend that while the United States is no longer a participant in the nuclear deal, it still retains all the rights of a participant under the resolution, which has never been overturned. And they intend to exercise that right if they don’t get their way.

“There is no qualification in 2231 where ‘participant’ is defined in a way to require participation in the JCPOA. And if the drafters wanted to make the qualification, they could have, but they did not,” Hook told reporters on April 30. “This is the plain reading of the text.”

“The arms embargo must be renewed, and we will exercise all diplomatic options to accomplish that,” Hook said. “We have a policy goal of renewing the arms embargo, and that’s where our focus is. We’re hopeful that we’ll succeed.”

John Bellinger III, who served as the principal legal advisor to the National Security Council and the State Department during the George W. Bush administration, said the United States can make a credible legal case for reimposing sanctions but that the outcome could prove self-defeating.

“The U.S. has the right to trigger snapback, but they may ultimately not be effective in achieving what they want to achieve,” he said, warning that states may be disinclined to observe such sanctions. “There is a real risk it could backfire if the other countries are unwilling to go along. If you try to lead but no one will follow, you have not been successful, and the U.S. will have fractured the Security Council.”

“I suspect, at the end of the day, the Security Council will be forced on a purely legal basis to conclude we have the right to submit the resolution [triggering snapback],” Nephew said. “The debate will split the council as a point of fact because you will have the French, Brits, and Germans screaming that we are not doing this in good faith and the Russians and the Chinese will lose their minds on this.” The practical outcome of this approach, he said, is that the Chinese and Russians will cry foul and declare the action illegitimate. “I have no doubt they will sell arms and will do so immediately. Those tanks that [U.S. Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo is so concerned about could be put on the next boat.”

European officials have fumed in private over the latest U.S. threat, which they suspect is designed to kill off the nuclear pact. They view Washington’s legalistic approach as inconsistent and hypocritical, noting that the very resolution being invoked by the United States to reimpose sanctions also calls on states to support the implementation of the nuclear pact. One senior European official also pointed out that a key provision in the U.N. Charter, Article 25, states that “the Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter”—a provision that the United States has ignored.

The U.S. strategy is “legally and politically obscene,” a U.N.-based diplomat privately toldthe International Crisis Group.

Russia has said publicly what some of its European partners are saying privately.

“Their reasoning is ludicrous, of course,” Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s ambassador to the U.N. in Vienna, said in an interview with the Russian newspaper Kommersant published on April 28. “It is common knowledge that Washington officially announced its withdrawal from the nuclear deal on May 8, 2018.”

“Theoretically, an attempt of this sort is possible, but it will make the U.S. appear in an extremely unattractive light,” he added. “I don’t think that the U.N. Security Council members would be ready to support the U.S. bid to remain a JCPOA participant. It is clear to everybody that this is preposterous. … The attempt to implement this plan will cause a lot of harm and lead to stormy debates in the U.N. Security Council.”

Democratic lawmakers who supported the JCPOA chided the administration for withdrawing from it in the first place and then later trying to use the deal to advance its goals. “They’re trying to have it both ways,” one Democratic congressional aide said.

Nevertheless, a bipartisan majority in Congress—including some of Trump’s most stalwart critics on the left—supports extending the Iran arms embargo. Hundreds of House lawmakers from both sides signed on to a letter to Pompeo last month urging an extension of the ban. “[W]e are concerned that the ban’s expiration will lead to more states buying and selling weapons to and from Iran. … This could have disastrous consequences for U.S. national security and our regional allies,” read the letter, which was organized by Reps. Eliot Engel and Michael McCaul, the chairman and the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, respectively.

“It’s now just several months out where China, Russia, other countries from around the world can all sell significant conventional weapons systems to the Iranians in October of this year,” Pompeo told reporters in a briefing last week. “This isn’t far off. This isn’t some fantasy by conservatives. This is a reality.”

The 2015 Iran nuclear pact—the culmination of more than a decade of diplomatic efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear program—offered Tehran an end to crippling economic sanctions in exchange for limiting its nuclear activities and undertaking a set of verifiable commitments to assure the world it was not building nuclear weapons. It was signed by representatives of Britain, China, the European Union, Iran, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States.

Trump derided the nuclear pact—a signature foreign-policy achievement for President Barack Obama—as a flawed agreement that gave Iran access to billions of dollars that have since been used to fund Iranian-backed militias and to advance a ballistic missile program that could improve Iran’s ability in the future to deliver a nuclear payload. On May 8, 2018, Trump formally withdrew from the agreement and began a process of imposing a range of U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Despite European government efforts to circumvent those sanctions, European businesses have largely observed the U.S. measures, fearing their companies could be penalized and denied access to U.S. consumer financial markets.

Iran has insisted for years that it has never had any desire to build nuclear weapons, but U.S. and other intelligence agencies have long contended that Tehran had been secretly developing nuclear weapons for years. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) concluded that it had been working on a nuclear weapon design until at least 2009. But the IAEA also claimed that Iran had stopped its design work and was in compliance with its obligations under the nuclear pact until the United States reneged on the deal.

A year after the United States withdrew from the pact, Tehran began a process of violating its own commitments under the pact, announcing on May 8, 2019, that it would no longer be bound by limits on the size of its stockpiles of enriched uranium. Iran subsequently stepped up activities at the Natanz and Fordow enrichment facilities, increasing stores of a more purified grade of uranium that could bring it close to producing weapons-grade fuel. Iran also restarted prohibited research and development work on advanced centrifuges, which would enable the country to purify its uranium at a greater speed.

Under the terms of the nuclear pact, Iran is permitted to stockpile up to 300 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, far short of the estimated 1,050 kilograms required to produce enough weapons-grade fuel for a single bomb. But in March, the IAEA reported that Iran had produced 1,021 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, making it all but certain it has enough raw uranium to build a bomb. If Iran decided to pursue a nuclear weapon, according to Nephew, the larger stockpile would cut down its so-called breakout time—the time it would take to convert the low-enriched uranium into weapons-grade fuel—from 12 months to about six months.

But some arms control experts cautioned that Iran would still need to overcome considerable technical hurdles to weaponize and deploy a nuclear weapon. They suspect that Iran’s violations have been carefully calibrated to apply pressure on the other signatories of the nuclear pact to ease sanctions on Iran.

The Iranians’ “actions and statements indicate they are not racing to build a nuclear weapon or amass material for a nuclear weapon,” said Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association. “They are retaliating in a measured way to the U.S. reimposition of sanctions, and they have threatened to go further if the situation continues indefinitely.”

In January, after Iran rejected any constraints on its enrichment of uranium, the foreign ministers of Britain, France, and Germany called out Iran for violating the terms of the nuclear pact and jointly triggered a so-called dispute settlement mechanism to press Tehran to come back into compliance or face the prospect of the Europeans declaring it in breach of its obligations—an action that would lead to the reimposition of sanctions. But the Europeans also faulted the United States for withdrawing from the nuclear accord and expressed their hopes that the initiative would compel Iran to reverse course.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said at the time that the Europeans “could no longer leave the growing Iranian violations of the nuclear agreement unanswered.”

“Our goal is clear,” he said. “We want to preserve the accord and come to a diplomatic solution within the agreement.”

Richard Gowan, the U.N. director at the International Crisis Group, said Washington’s threat to trigger the snapback may be designed to “scare the Europeans into backing alternative ways to keep the arms embargo alive.”

Gowan said European diplomats had suspected that the United States might try to convince Britain to break with its European partners, declare Tehran in breach of its obligations, and trigger the snapback provision. “The fact the U.S. is making the case that it can still do snapback itself implies that the British option may not be available.”

“I am not sure there is a compromise available,” he added, noting that the Europeans may be paying as much attention as Trump to the U.S. election calendar. “The higher the chances of [Joe] Biden victory in November, the less likely the E3 [the three European signatories to the nuclear pact] will be to buy a U.S. snapback drive.”

Photo: IRNA

Zarif Says Informed by UN That US Has Denied Him Visa

Iran's foreign minister said Tuesday he has been informed by UN chief Antonio Guterres that Washington has denied him a visa for a trip to UN headquarters in New York.

"What we know is that the US State Secretary (Mike Pompeo), in a call to the Secretary General of the United Nations, said: 'We did not have time to issue a visa for Mohammad Javad Zarif and we will not issue a visa'," Zarif said.

"The Secretary General responded by saying that it is Iran's right to take part in this session," Tehran's top diplomat said, quoted by semi-official news agency ISNA.

Asked about Zarif's complaint, Pompeo said the State Department does not comment on visa matters.

"I will say only this—we will always comply with our obligations under the UN requirements and the Headquarters Agreement, and we will do so in this particular instance and more broadly every day," he told reporters.

Zarif was speaking to reporters in Tehran at a gathering to promote an Iranian peace plan for the Gulf.

His remarks came as Iran held funeral processions on Tuesday for one of its top military commanders killed in a US drone strike in Iraq.

Zarif later took to Twitter, saying the rejection violated the terms of a 1947 agreement on the travel of representatives of UN members to and from the headquarters.

But he said "denying me a visa... pales in comparison to" US sanctions and threats, as well as the "cowardly assassination" of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani last week.

"What are they really afraid of? Truth?" he tweeted.

Soleimani's killing in the US strike Friday in Baghdad has sparked a war of words between the arch-foes, with Iran vowing "severe revenge" and US President Donald Trump threatening to hit back hard for any retaliation.

Trump warned on Saturday that Washington had lined up 52 targets if Tehran attacked US personnel or assets.

Zarif said the US visa decision was "a sign of the bankruptcy of the US government and Trump's regime", according to ISNA.

The Iranian foreign minister said he had been planning to go to UN headquarters on Thursday for an open debate on "Upholding the Charter of the United Nations".

But he added that he had also intended to "raise America's crimes" during his visit to New York.

It is not the first time that Iranian officials have encountered problems when travelling to New York for events at UN headquarters.

In December, the UN General Assembly called on the United States to lift restrictions on Iranian diplomats.

Since mid-2019, Iranian diplomats and ministers have been under strict movement restrictions when they are in the United States.

They are limited largely to the area around UN headquarters, the Iranian diplomatic mission and the ambassador's residence.

In September, while taking part in the annual General Assembly, Zarif complained he was unable to visit the country's UN ambassador in a US hospital.

Photo: IRNA

Pompeo: Europe Not 'Helpful' as Could be over Soleimani Killing

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that Washington's European allies had not been "as helpful" as he hoped over the US killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq.

Pompeo called officials worldwide to discuss the attack, which was praised by US President Donald Trump's Republicans and close ally Israel, but elsewhere met with sharp warnings it could inflame regional tensions.

"I spent the last day and a half, two days, talking to partners in the region, sharing with them what we were doing, why we were doing it, seeking their assistance. They've all been fantastic," Pompeo said in an interview with Fox News.

"And then talking to our partners in other places that haven't been quite as good. Frankly, the Europeans haven't been as helpful as I wish that they could be," he said.

US officials said Soleimani, who had been blacklisted by the US, was killed when a drone hit his vehicle near Baghdad's international airport.

Following the assassination, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell called on all involved actors "to exercise maximum restraint and show responsibility in this crucial moment." 

Meanwhile French President Emmanuel Macron urged those involved to act with "restraint" while British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said de-escalation would be key.

"The Brits, the French, the Germans all need to understand that what we did, what the Americans did, saved lives in Europe as well," Pompeo said.

"This was a good thing for the entire world, and we are urging everyone in the world to get behind what the United States is trying to do to get the Islamic Republic of Iran to simply behave like a normal nation," he added.

Pompeo said earlier in the day that Soleimani was planning imminent action that threatened American citizens when he was killed in the strike.

Photo: IRNA

US Prepared to Talk to Iran 'With No Preconditions': Pompeo

By Francesco Fontemaggi

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday his country was ready to talk with Tehran "with no preconditions", but with no indication lifting sanctions over Iran's nuclear program is on the table.

The top US diplomat, who is considered a hawk on the Iran file, appeared to soften the US stance somewhat following weeks of escalating tensions with Tehran.

"We are prepared to engage in a conversation with no preconditions," Pompeo said in Switzerland, which in the absence of US-Iranian diplomatic ties represents Washington's interests in the Islamic Republic.

"We are ready to sit down with them," Pompeo told a joint news conference with his Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis at the impressive medieval Castelgrande castle in Bellinzona, nestled in the Alps in Switzerland's Italian-speaking Ticino region.

He was reacting to comments made by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday insisting that his country would not be "bullied" into talks with the United States, and that any dialogue between the two countries needed to be grounded in "respect.”

But Pompeo appeared to immediately back-pedal on the offer to have condition-free talks with Iran, stating that Washington was "certainly prepared to have (a) conversation when the Iranians will prove they are behaving as a normal nation." 

’Malign Activity'

Pompeo's comments mark the first time the Trump administration has offered no-strings-attached talks since the recent escalation began in the wake of the US withdrawal from a hard-won 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

But Pompeo stressed that "the American effort to fundamentally reverse the malign activity of this Islamic Republic, this revolutionary force, is going to continue."

In other words, Washington has no intention to let up on its campaign of "maximum pressure" on Iran.

Pompeo himself last year laid out 12 draconian demands he said Iran would need to meet before reaching a "new deal" with the United States, essentially addressing every aspect of Iran's missile program and what Washington calls its "malign influence" across the region.

Washington has since reimposed sanctions, and has been locked in an increasingly tense standoff with Tehran.

Last month it deployed an aircraft carrier task force, B-52 bombers and an amphibious assault ship to the Gulf, along with additional troops against what Washington's leaders believed was an imminent Iranian plan to attack US assets.

But at the same time, Trump has over the past week toned down the rhetoric, saying Washington does not seek "regime change" in Iran and holding out the possibility of talks.

He said the US was merely "looking for no nuclear weapons," adding that "I really believe that Iran would like to make a deal. I think that's very smart of them and I think there's a possibility for that to happen also."

Swiss Mediation?

Swiss Foreign Minister Cassis meanwhile voiced his country's readiness to play the role of "intermediary" between the two countries.

But he stressed Switzerland could not be "mediators if there is not willingness on both sides."

Cassis also voiced concern about the "great suffering" in Iran brought about by the US sanctions, and urged Washington to identify a financial "channel" to allow the Iranians to purchase humanitarian aid without being slapped with US punitive measures.

Pompeo did not respond directly to this request, but he rejected the notion that US sanctions were causing suffering, instead blaming the leadership in Tehran.

The challenges facing Iranians "are not caused by our economic sanctions," he said. "They're caused by 40 years of the Islamic regime not taking care of their people and instead using their resources to destroy lives."

He meanwhile preferred to remain discreet about efforts, largely led by Switzerland, to ensure the release of a handful of American citizens being held in Iran, stating only that the issue was a top priority for Trump, and that Washington is "working with all willing nations to assist us." 

Photo: State Department

Exasperated Europeans Face Surprise Pompeo Visit on Iran

By Patrick Donahue, Gregory Viscusi and Tim Ross

As European Union governments scramble to save the Iran nuclear accord from U.S. efforts to scuttle it, the mood in diplomatic circles has blackened. Then suddenly, U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo lands in Brussels with little warning.

The top U.S. diplomat parachuted in as 28 European Union foreign ministers gathered to discuss Iran. After a cool initial reception to the unscheduled drop-in, Pompeo began meetings with European counterparts to address Iran’s “threatening actions and statements.”

“I made clear once again that we are worried in view of the developments and the tensions in the region,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters. “We don’t want a military escalation.”

The hard-line approach adopted by President Donald Trump has left European allies irritated at the lack of strategy and powerless to sway a U.S. administration that’s failed to provide answers on where it all leads, according to diplomats in Berlin, Paris and London.

On their minds is the risk of a return to a nuclear threat in the Middle East, they said on condition of anonymity as talks proceed behind closed doors. The Europeans are in a bind, with limited options to protect the deal. Their attempt to circumvent U.S. sanctions has fallen flat as companies do not want to run foul of the U.S. and risk trade with such a key partner.

Exasperation

Ministers from the U.K., France and Germany, the three EU signatories to the Iran accord, were expected to sit down with Pompeo, but plans were ad-hoc given the last-minute nature of the visit. Early reaction was lukewarm at best.

“He’s always welcome obviously, but there are no precise plans for the moment,” European Union foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini said earlier in the day. Later she said she’d convene with him after the EU meeting was finished.

Behind the shuttle diplomacy lies a sense that more than 15 years of heavy lifting that culminated in the nuclear deal is slipping away, according to senior European diplomats. And even if few expect an open conflict in the near term, the fear is that Trump’s unpredictable approach could have unintended consequences.

What Next?

A tit-for-tat could easily ensue from an altercation, such as a hit on U.S. forces by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, two diplomats speculated. The U.S. squeezed Iran further by designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization last month.

Saudi Arabia said Monday two of its oil tankers were attacked while sailing toward the Persian Gulf. While it did not directly accuse Iran, the incident adds to a febrile atmosphere in the world’s most important chokepoint for oil shipments as Trump dials up the pressure. Crude rose as much as 2%.

It’s the latest turn between the U.S. and erstwhile European allies grappling with Trump’s hectoring on trade, defense spending and Chinese technology. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, which has drawn special scrutiny from Trump, has been particularly ruffled by the president’s hardball tactics over a gas pipeline to Russia.

Iran’s warning last week that it had begun to gradually abandon parts of the 2015 nuclear accord capped Trump’s yearlong effort to derail the treaty. The so-called EU-3 responded with a pledge to keep the Iran deal on life support, primarily with an investment vehicle aimed at circumventing U.S. sanctions that are crippling the Iranian economy.

The U.S., meanwhile, has dispatched an aircraft carrier strike group and bomber force to the region, cementing its confrontational stance—and leaving Europeans with few options. And even as they reject a 60-day ultimatum presented by Iran, European leaders are laying blame with the White House.

“First of all, Iran hasn’t left the deal,” French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters Thursday at an EU summit in Sibiu, Romania. “Second of all, if they do, it’ll be the responsibility of the U.S.”

The brinkmanship has left Europeans baffled.

One diplomat said Trump’s legacy may be raising the nuclear threat from Iran as well as North Korea, rather than stopping it. Another quipped that short of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani boarding a flight to Washington and signing Pompeo’s 12 conditions, tantamount to total capitulation, nothing was on the table.

Trump himself has said he’s open to talks with Iran, suggesting the 12 demands from Pompeo are an opening negotiating salvo.

Pompeo has demanded that Iran abandon nuclear ambitions, scrap its missile program and end support for allied groups in places like Syria and Yemen. And while Europeans have made similar demands, they’re convinced open confrontation won’t yield any such results.

The treaty’s other signatories, Russia and China, may not offer Europe much help. While China’s purchase of Iranian oil could go a long way in preserving the deal, the government in Beijing won’t risk baiting Trump while they’re in deadlocked trade talks, according to two European diplomats.

Photo: DOD

Pompeo to Visit Brussels as Europe Meets on Iran

By Damon Wake in Brussels

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will visit Brussels on Monday to discuss "pressing matters" including the Iran nuclear deal, as the European signatories to the accord meet for talks on how to prevent its collapse.

The EU reiterated its determination to save the 2015 agreement to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions in return for sanctions relief, as tensions between the US and Iran rack up.

Iran last week announced it was suspending some of its commitments under the agreement, a year after US President Donald Trump withdrew from the accord and imposed swingeing sanctions on the Islamic republic—putting the deal in grave peril.

Adding a military dimension to the diplomatic tensions, Washington is sending an amphibious assault ship and a Patriot missile battery to the Gulf, having already deployed an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers.

The European Union's diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini stressed the need for dialogue as "the only and the best way to address differences and avoid escalation" in the region, as she arrived for a scheduled meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers.

"We continue to fully support the nuclear deal with Iran, its full implementation," Mogherini said.

"It has been and continues to be for us a key element of the non-proliferation architecture both globally and in the region."

Alongside the meeting of all 28 foreign ministers, the representatives of Britain, France and Germany—the three European signatories—will meet Mogherini to discuss how to keep the deal going.

"We in Europe agree that this agreement is necessary for our security. No-one wants Iran to come into possession of a nuclear bomb," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said as he arrived.

"That is why we will continue to support the implementation of this agreement."

Few details of Pompeo's agenda in Brussels have been announced, beyond the State Department saying talks would be held with officials from France, the UK and Germany.

Mogherini gave a chilly response to news of Pompeo's visit, which she said was only communicated to Brussels at the last minute.

"We'll be here all day with a busy agenda so we'll see during the day how and if we manage to arrange a meeting," she told reporters.

President Hassan Rouhani issued an ultimatum to the Europeans last week, threatening that Iran would go further if they fail to deliver sanctions relief to counterbalance Trump's renewed assault on the Iranian economy within 60 days.

The European powers rejected that ultimatum.

The US has continued to build pressure on Iran, with Pompeo accusing Tehran of planning "imminent" attacks and bolstering the military presence in the Gulf.

Pompeo's visit to Brussels means he is scrapping a stop expected on Monday in Moscow.

But he will still head to the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on Tuesday to meet President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, a State Department official added just before Pompeo left Washington. 

In recent days, Pompeo has already cancelled trips to Berlin and to Greenland to focus on the Iran issue.

Photo: EEAS

US Designates Iran's Revolutionary Guards as Terrorist Organization

The United States on Monday designated Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization, ramping up already far-reaching efforts to undermine the clerical government in Tehran—which swiftly retaliated by calling US troops terrorists.

It is the first time that Washington has branded part of a foreign government a terrorist group, meaning that anyone who deals with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could face prison in the United States.

President Donald Trump called the unit—which has some 125,000 troops and vast interests across the Iranian economy—Tehran's "primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign."

"This action will significantly expand the scope and scale of our maximum pressure on the Iranian regime," Trump said in a statement.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, addressing reporters, said that all businesses and banks around the world "now have a clear duty" to cut off all dealings that involve the Revolutionary Guards.

"The leaders of Iran are racketeers, not revolutionaries," Pompeo said. 

The move comes on top of Trump's decision last year to pull the United States out of an international deal with Iran that was meant to lift crippling economic sanctions in return for the government allowing its nuclear technology to be restricted and kept under close supervision.

The United States has long debated the terrorist designation and has been encouraged to do so by Saudi Arabia and Israel, arch-rivals of Iran which enjoy close relationships with Trump.

The decision comes hours before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces re-election in tight polls. In a statement, he thanked his "dear friend" Trump.

Swift Retaliation

Iran swiftly took retaliatory action. The Supreme National Security Council, in a statement carried by the official news agency IRNA, declared the United States to be a state sponsor of terrorism and both called the US Central Command and forces underneath it terrorist groups.

Part of America's vast military presence around the globe, CENTCOM's area of command covers multiple conflict zones and hotspots including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and the Gulf.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who recommended the CENTCOM designation, denounced the move against the Revolutionary Guards as a way to sway the Israeli election.

"A(nother) misguided election-eve gift to Netanyahu. A(nother) dangerous US misadventure in the region," Zarif tweeted.

The Revolutionary Guards were formed after the 1979 Islamic revolution with a mission to defend the religious regime, in contrast to more traditional military units that protect borders.

Abroad, the Guards' prized Quds Force, named for the Arabic word for Jerusalem, supports Iranian allies including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Lebanon's Hezbollah and militias from Iraq's Shiite majority.

At home, the Guards have amassed sweeping political and economic influence, with Brian Hook, the State Department's representative on Iran, citing estimates that they control up to half of the Iranian economy.

Pompeo and Hook said that 603 troops killed in Iraq since the United States invaded in 2003—or 17 percent of the total US death toll—could be attributed to Iran.

The Revolutionary Guards were also at the forefront of assisting Iraqi forces in defeating Islamic State extremists.

Criminalizing Contact With Guards

The United States has long mulled designating the Revolutionary Guards as terrorists but held off, fearing threats to US troops and questioning whether the move would do much to pressure a force already under a raft of sanctions.

US officials said the terrorist label, which takes effect on April 15, would make it a criminal offense in the United States to provide "material support" to the Revolutionary Guards, with violators subject to up to 20 years in prison.

Pompeo set his sights directly on Qassem Soleimani, the major general who leads the Quds Force.

"We are sending... a clear message to Iran's leaders, including Qassem Soleimani and his band of thugs, that the United States is bringing all pressure to bear to stop the regime's outlaw behavior," Pompeo said.

The United States insists that its goal is not regime change but several of Trump's top advisers have long been close to Iranian exiles seeking to topple the Islamic republic.

Critics in the United States said that the Trump administration was seeking to stir up a crisis that could lead to confrontation or at least push Iran to violate the 2015 nuclear accord. Europeans strongly support preserving the agreement and UN inspectors say that Iran remains in compliance.

"This is yet another dangerous escalation of conflict with Iran that is disturbingly reminiscent of the lead-up to the failed war in Iraq," said Tom Udall, a Democratic senator from New Mexico.

"The Trump administration is ratcheting up confrontation, undercutting diplomacy and putting American troops at risk," he said.

Photo Credit: IRNA