Macron meets Iran FM Zarif to push for G7 detente

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron held talks with Iran’s foreign minister on Friday ahead of a G7 meeting, where he will attempt to soothe tensions between Tehran and Washington at what risks being a stormy summit.

Macron had pledged to “try to propose things” in the talks with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at the Elysee Palace on Friday. France has stepped up its outreach to Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, with Macron twice dispatching his diplomatic advisor Emmanuel Bonne to Tehran in recent months.

“President Rouhani instructed me to go and meet with President Macron (to see) whether we can finalise some of these proposals in order to be able to have everybody comply with their obligations under the JCPOA,” Zarif said in Norway on Thursday. “It’s an opportunity to review the proposal by President Macron and to present the views of President Rouhani and see if we can find more common ground. We already have some common ground.”

The nuclear deal has all but collapsed after US President Donald Trump pulled the US out unilaterally in May 2018 and re-imposed sanctions that have wreaked havoc on the Iranian economy. Tensions have only worsened since then, with both Tehran and Washington claiming to have shot down rival drones in the Mideast in recent weeks.

Macron’s diplomacy is a delicate task, with France seeking a rollback on some of the US measures imposed on Iran as part of Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy towards the Islamic republic, which says its nuclear programme is peaceful.

French diplomats have raised the idea of US waivers on sanctions affecting Iranian oil exports to India and China, or a new credit line for Tehran that could help the struggling economy. That prompted Trump to accuse Macron of sending Tehran “mixed signals” in his attempt to broker fresh talks between the longtime adversaries. Iran is just one of a host of issues where G7 members France, the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, Italy and Japan find themselves at loggerheads, upending what used to be a club of rich nations.