Despite the failure of the great efforts of French President Emmanuel Macron in New York and earlier in Biarritz, on the occasion of the G7 summit, to provide the ground for a meeting between the US and Iranian presidents, Paris is still hoping that time allows such an encounter.
France remains convinced, according to its sources, that the plan put forward by Macron, which was “accepted by the United States and Iran is still valid” and that it “constitutes a realistic basis” to return to the negotiating table, whether in the framework of bilateral US-Iranian talks, or within a broader context as demanded by Tehran.
“We consider that these initiatives, which didn’t succeed, are still on the table and it is up to Iran and the United States to seize (them) in a relatively short amount of time because Iran has announced new measures to reduce its commitments to the Vienna accord in November,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Wednesday.
European diplomatic sources in Paris said that reaching the beginning of next month without making any progress “will be very critical for Paris, London and Berlin,” because those capitals “will have to declare a position on Tehran and the fate of the nuclear deal, which they have continued to defend until now.”
The sources added that Iran, which has deployed advanced centrifuges of the fourth and sixth generation, “will have additional capabilities to enrich uranium to a high degree” unrelated to the current 4.5 percent, which enables it to produce one kilogram of low-enriched uranium per month.
It is noteworthy that the three capitals, according to consistent information, warned Tehran that its continued violation of the agreement will prompt them not only to abandon the deal, but also to activate the mechanism for the settlement of disputes stipulated in the said agreement, which the three European countries have so far refrained from resorting to in order to leave the door open to negotiations.