Iran will launch, "today or tomorrow", an "acceleration" of its nuclear activities, as part of its policy of disengagement from the 2015 Nuclear Agreement. It is the Iranian president who announced Wednesday, September 4, not without warning that this stage, the third in this direction since May 8, will be "the most important and will have extraordinary effects" on the Iranian nuclear program.
Tehran threatens to increase the process of enriching its uranium stockpile to 20% or to restart centrifuges stopped under the agreement signed in Vienna by Iran and the 5 + 1 group (United States, China , Russia, United Kingdom, France and Germany).
This announcement throws a chill on the diplomatic efforts of President Emmanuel Macron who, in the wake of the surprise visit of the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to Biarritz, on the sidelines of the G7 summit, aim to save the 2015 agreement A pact threatened since the United States withdrew unilaterally in May 2018, reimposing financial sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Since the tensions between Tehran and Washington are alive in the Gulf.
Tehran and Trump's "maximum pressure" strategy
The Iranians have adopted the 2015 Pact Disengagement Policy to urge European signatories to keep their promises to clear US sanctions. A strategy of "maximum pressure" dear to the American president, which seems to be paying off as gradually freeing itself from certain points of the agreement, the Iranians pushed the Europeans, France in the lead, to return to Teheran to leave the country. dead end.
"We must not forget that the European nations, especially France, are among the biggest losers in economic terms, the policy of American sanctions. It has forced them to abandon the Iranian market to countries like China and China. India, "recalls France 24 Said Lilaz, economist and former economic adviser to former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
With the Iranian strategy, the Elysee had prepared for the announcement of Hassan Rohani, regularly in contact with Emmanuel Macron in recent days. "We tried to persuade (the Iranians) not to go further, but this is not the end of the mechanism if they do," said a source familiar with the negotiations quoted by Reuters, noting that measures taken by Tehran so far are irreversible. Clearly, the Iranian approach sends "clearly a bad signal", but it does not condemn the French initiative.
On Tuesday, the Iranian president said that Iran remains ready to discuss with its partners even in the event of implementation of its "third phase" of disengagement. It granted an additional two months to Europeans (on July 7, Tehran gave "60 days" to its partners, ie until September 5) "to fulfill their commitments".
Blowing hot and cold, the Iranian president has even reported progress in these negotiations. "If we had twenty litigation points in the past, we have only three today", but not yet "final agreement", he said in the Council of Ministers.
>> To see on France 24: "The American pressure will not work on the Iranians", considers Mohammad Javad Zarif
Sign of the intensification of French diplomatic initiatives, an Iranian delegation, headed by Vice Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, was received in Paris earlier this week. "There are still many things to be solved, it remains very fragile", "but we speak (...) with relative confidence," said the head of French diplomacy, Jean-Yves Le Drian, before the Association of the French diplomatic press, the day after the meeting with the Iranian delegation.
"The French proposal will be studied, if it is valid we can speak of a good start, even if that is not enough," warned MP Heshmatollah Flahat Bishah, also a member of the Committee on National Security and Security. foreign policy of the Iranian parliament, questioned by France 24.
$ 15 billion line of credit
In recent days, the content of the exchanges filtered, French side and Iranian side. Quoted by the Irna agency, Abbas Araghchi explained that the discussions focused on the possible release of a line of credit "of about 15 billion dollars (13.6 billion euros) over four months", corresponding to approximately A third of Iran's oil exports in 2017. Iran derives 80% of its foreign exchange resources from the sale of petroleum or petroleum products.The return of sanctions isolates it almost completely from the international financial system and makes it lose the almost all of its buyers.
Abbas Araghchi announced Wednesday, shortly before Hassan Rohani's announcement, that Iran "will return to full implementation [of the deal] only if it is able to sell its oil and enjoy unhindered oil." 'money from these sales'. And to add: "the proposal of France goes in this direction".
According to Jean-Yves Le Drian, this credit line "guaranteed by oil" would be granted "against a return of Iran to the JCPOA [Vienna Agreement, Ed], security in the Gulf and the opening of in-depth negotiations to both regional security and the post-2025 ", the date on which certain restrictions of the agreement expire.
It remains to convince the United States to give the green light to such a scenario. Washington has failed to bend Iran despite economic sanctions that stifle its economy and the repeated threats of Donald Trump. Conscious of being at a standstill on the Iranian issue, the American president was open to the idea of a "letter of credit or a short-term loan" during an exchange with journalists during the G7 meeting in Biarritz.
The establishment of this line of credit guarantee "presupposes that the US president raises waivers [derogations, Ed] on this or that point" sanctions, said Jean-Yves Le Drian. That is, US sanctions exemptions granted to major customers of Iranian crude, especially China, India and Japan.
An idea rejected Wednesday by the US administration. "We can not be more clear on the fact that we are determined to implement this campaign of maximum pressure and that we do not intend to grant exceptions or derogations "US envoy for Iran Brian Hook told reporters.
Asked if Washington was ready to study the possibility of a green light for French initiatives, he then evaded the question, merely saying that he had not yet seen a "concrete" proposal.
With AFP and Reuters