British FM to travel to US in bid to save Iran

British Foreign Secretary Borris Johnson will travel to Washington next week in a bid to persuade US senators not to abandon the Iran nuclear deal or impose fresh sanctions against Tehran that could jeopardize the deal.

In a statement, Johnson said that while describing the deal as an “amazing triumph of diplomacy”, it had not led to wider changes in Iranian policies in the Middle East, such as in its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi rebels in Yemen, the Guardian reported on Thursday.

Iran’s behavior was creating an incredibly dangerous situation, but he said it was vital that America did not respond by “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” by rejecting the deal outright, Johnson noted.

It might be possible to take measures to try to constrain Iran, but we did not want any measures to impact the nuclear deal so that it was “no longer viable from the Iranian point of view”, the UK top diplomat added.

He expressed concerns that further sanctions might also damage the limited economic engagement already under way.

Johnson acknowledged there were aspects of the deal that were going to need to be renegotiated, notably the sunset clause that ends the deal in eight years and could under some interpretation of the agreement allow Iran to possess a nuclear weapon almost as soon as the deal expires.

Source : Mena