Spurned by Trump, Europeans ponder how to meet Iran ultimatum

PARIS/BRUSSELS/WASHINGTON: A day before Donald Trump’s Jan. 12 ultimatum to “fix” the Iran nuclear deal, European powers met Iran´s foreign minister to show support for it, but the effort failed to soften Trump´s aversion to the accord, US and European officials said.

The gathering in Brussels may even have reinforced the US president´s antipathy, according to three US officials involved in the discussions. Trump instead gave the European allies, Britain, France, Germany, and the US Congress 120 days to come up with a tougher approach on Tehran or see US sanctions reimposed, they said. With Trump warning of a last chance for “the worst deal ever negotiated”, Britain, France and Germany have begun talks on a plan to satisfy him by addressing Iran´s ballistic missile tests and its regional influence while preserving the 2015 accord that curbed Iran´s nuclear ambitions for at least a decade. It is hard to say what might mollify the Trump administration, which is split between those who would like to tear up the agreement and those who wish to preserve it and which has said inconsistent things about its demands to keep the accord, US and European officials said.

Under US law, Trump must decide again whether to renew the US sanctions relief every 120 days, giving Congress, as well as US and European diplomats, until mid-May to see if there is a way to finesse the issue. But the Brussels meeting has left European powers wary that whatever they agree, it may not be enough. “We´re going to work in the spirit that we´re ready to talk about everything, from the nuclear accord to Iran´s ballistic missiles,” said a senior European diplomat. “But we want to compartmentalise the subjects; we´re not going to mix them. “At stake is not just an historic accord negotiated - before Trump took office - by the United States, China, France, Russia, Britain, Germany and the European Union, and one that Europe sees as its biggest diplomatic achievement in decades.