Category Archives: European Union

European Union, Government, Iran, Middle East, Society, United Nations, United States

Trump condemned as US withdraws from Iran nuclear deal

IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL

Walking away: Donald Trump announcing that the US is withdrawing from the Iran deal.

DONALD TRUMP has faced global condemnation after the US pulled out of the Iran nuclear agreement.

As the President inflamed tensions in the already volatile region, Theresa May, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel said his decision had been met with “regret and concern”.

In a joint statement, the French, British and German leaders said “the world was a safer place” because of the deal and pledged to remain committed to it.

But Mr Trump said he was walking away from the 2015 pact in order to stop a “nuclear bomb” being acquired by the “world’s leading state sponsor of terror”.

Announcing “powerful” sanctions for Iran, he claimed failing to withdraw from the agreement would lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

And he warned that, if Iran developed weapons, Tehran would have “bigger problems then it has ever had before.”

However, Iran’s president responded by saying that if negotiations failed over the nuclear deal, it would enrich uranium “more than before… in the next weeks”.

Mrs May, Mr Macron and Mrs Merkel – who each spoke to the President about the decision over the past few days – said they remained committed to the deal that was “important for our shared security”. They also urged Tehran “to show restraint in response” to the US decision.

In a much anticipated response from the White House, Mr Trump said: “If I allowed this deal to stand there would soon be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Everyone would want their weapons ready by the time Iran had theirs.

“We cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotting structure of the current agreement. The Iran deal is defective at its core.

“In just a short period of time the world’s leading state sponsor of terror would be on the cusp of acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons.”

Under the agreement, Iran had agreed to limit nuclear activities in return for easing economic sanctions. Tehran claimed at the time it had pursued only nuclear energy rather than weapons.

But Mr Trump said that, since the deal, “Iran’s bloody ambitions have grown only more brazen” and the pact “didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will”.

The President, who had committed to scrapping the deal during his election campaign, pointed out that Iran had boosted its military expenditure, supported terrorism and “caused havoc” throughout the Middle East and beyond.

He said that he had spoken to France, Germany, Britain and friends across the Middle East who were “unified” in their conviction that Iran must never deliver nuclear weapons. He added: “America will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail.

“The US no longer makes empty threats. When I make promises I keep them.”

However, the President said he would be open to a new deal in future. Mr Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, who signed the deal, said the “misguided” decision could even lead the US into war.

He said: “At a time when we are all rooting for diplomacy with North Korea to succeed, walking away… risks losing a deal that accomplished – with Iran – the very outcome that we are pursuing with the North Koreans.

“We all know the dangers of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“It could embolden an already dangerous regime; threaten our friends with destruction; pose unacceptable dangers to America’s own security; and trigger an arms race in the world’s most dangerous region.”

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said there was a “short time” to negotiate with the countries remaining in the nuclear deal.

He told Iranian state media: “I have ordered Iran’s atomic organisation that wherever it is needed, we will start enriching uranium more than before.” The UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said he was deeply concerned by the US decision, while the EU’s diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini said Brussels was “determined” to preserve the deal.

Tensions were already heightened after Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu announced that his nations spies had stolen thousands of files on Iran’s nuclear programme. He also said Israel would rather face a confrontation with Iran “now than later”.

 

THE 2015 nuclear deal was signed by Iran, the US, Britain, Russia, France, China and Germany.

The agreement lifted crippling economic sanctions on Iran in return for limitations to its nuclear energy programme, which many feared would be used to make a nuclear weapon.

Under the deal, Iran agreed to slash enrichment levels of uranium to prevent it reaching “weapons grade” and by redesigning a heavy-water nuclear facility it had been building so it would no longer be capable of producing plutonium suitable for a nuclear bomb.

Tehran also agreed not to engage in activities, including research and development, that it would need to develop a weapon.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was granted greater access and information to monitor Iran’s nuclear programme. It also had powers to investigate suspicious sites.

In return, the lifting of sanctions meant Iran gained access to more than $100billion in assets frozen overseas. It was also able to resume selling oil on international markets and use the global financial system for trade.

The agreement stated that any violation would lead to UN sanctions being put into place for ten years.

. See also Israel, Iran and the tinderbox of the Middle East

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Britain, European Union, Government, Russia, Society

Britain: Russia’s poison stockpile

SALISBURY ATTACK

BORIS JOHNSON has said that Russia has been “creating and stockpiling” the deadly nerve agent used in the Salisbury spy attack for a decade. This claim and accusation was immediately denounced as “drivel” by Vladimir Putin.

The Foreign Secretary said scientists had developed Novichok in breach of international chemical weapons conventions and researched how to use them to assassinate its enemies.

Mr Johnson’s blunt comments has heightened the war of words with Moscow over the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

Putin dismissed Johnson’s claims as “nonsense”, but said Moscow was willing to cooperate on the probe.

He said he found out about the attack from the media, adding: “The first thing that entered my head was that if it had been a military-grade nerve agent, the people would have died on the spot.

“Russia does not have such [nerve] agents. We destroyed all our chemical weapons under the supervision of international organisations, and we did it first, unlike some of our partners who promised to do it, but unfortunately did not keep their promises.

“We are ready to cooperate. We are ready to take part in the necessary investigations, but for that there needs to be a desire from the other side, and we don’t see that yet.

“I think any sensible person would understand that it would be rubbish, drivel, nonsense, for Russia to embark on such an escapade on the eve of a presidential election. It’s just unthinkable.”

Russia’s ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, even hinted the Salisbury nerve agent could have come from the UK military’s chemical weapons laboratory at Porton Down. The Foreign Secretary described Mr Chizhov’s response as a combination of “smug sarcasm and denial”, and said he was lying.

Inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have today come to the UK to take samples of Novichok. The tests are expected to last for two weeks.

Mr Johnson insists that the British Government had given Russia “every opportunity” to come up with an explanation for how the nerve agent (manufactured in Russia) came to be in Britain.

“Their response has been a sort of mixture of smug sarcasm and denial, obfuscation and delay,” Mr Johnson said.

“In response to Mr Chizhov’s point about Russian stockpiles of chemical weapons: We actually had evidence within the last ten years that Russia has not only been investigating the delivery of nerve agents for the purposes of assassination, but it has also been creating and stockpiling Novichok.”

Two days ago, Russia announced it would expel 23 British diplomats, matching the number of Russian spies ordered to leave the UK. It also closed a consulate and barred the British Council from working in the country.

Mr Johnson has travelled to Brussels today to brief foreign ministers from across the European Union on the attack. He then held talks with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The National Security Council will meet tomorrow to discuss the UK’s response. Mr Johnson suggested there would not be an immediate retaliation.

He said ministers were “hardening our borders” and ensuring the authorities pursued Russians who had “corruptly obtained their wealth”.

In interviews given by Mr Chizhov, he claimed that Mr Skripal had been “almost forgotten” in Russia.

“He has been living in Britain for eight years now. Before that – I think I should stress the point – he was officially pardoned by presidential decree.” He also claimed that because Yulia was a Russian citizen, the British authorities had violated “consular convention” by not allowing Russian officials access to her in hospital.

Russia had “no stockpiles whatsoever” of chemical weapons, he said. “Actually, Russia has stopped production of any chemical agents back in 1992. So, we cannot even talk about any chemical agents produced by Russia. All that have been produced previously was produced by the Soviet Union.”

Russia signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1992. The treaty – which aims to end the development, production, stockpiling and transfer of chemical weapons – is enforced by the OPCW.

In February last year, the OPCW presented Russia with a plague to mark the destruction of its declared stockpiles of chemical weapons.

. See also, Opinion: UK measures and sanctions on Russia still leaves us vulnerable

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Britain, European Union, Government, Politics, Society

Britain lays down gauntlet to EU with ‘Brexit blueprint’

BREXIT

The British Prime Minister delivers her long awaited speech and blueprint for Brexit.

THERESA May has thrown down the gauntlet to Brussels by saying that the EU had a “shared interest” in making a success of Brexit.

In a long-awaited speech, the Prime Minister has set out a detailed blueprint for Brexit that would maintain trade links, while setting Britain free to decide its own destiny.

After Brussels accused her of “cherry picking” the parts of EU membership it likes, Mrs May pointed out that all trade deals work that way.

And, with the clock ticking down to Britain’s exit in March next year, she urged the EU to accelerate trade talks.

She said: “We know what we want. We understand your principles. We have a shared interest in getting this right. So, let’s get on with it.”

The speech, delivered last Friday at Mansion House in the City of London, follows weeks of Cabinet wrangling over how far to go in making a clean break with the EU.

In a decisive statement, Mrs May said she would lead Britain out of the single market, rejected calls to join a customs union, called time on the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and vowed to end free movement of people.

The PM said Brexit would produce “a stronger, more cohesive nation”. And she dismissed calls for a second referendum, saying: “We won’t think again on Brexit. The people voted for it and it is incumbent on the Government to deliver it.”

But she also warned that making a clean break with Brussels would come at the price of reduced access to European markets. “I want to be straight with people – because the reality is that we all need to face up to some hard facts,” said Mrs May.

“We are leaving the single market. Life is going to be different. In certain ways, our access to each other’s markets will be less than it is now. How could the EU’s structure of rights and obligations be sustained, if the UK – or any country – were allowed to enjoy all the benefits without all of the obligations? So we need to strike a new balance.”

Mrs May’s intervention does appear to have succeeded in uniting the warring factions of the Conservative Party without immediately alienating Brussels.

In a speech that was long on detail, Mrs May:

. Rejected “unacceptable” EU plans to keep Northern Ireland in the customs union after Brexit, which she warned would break up Britain.

. Said the UK may continue to respect EU state aid and competition rules – a move that could frustrate a future hard-Left government bent on imposing socialism.

. Pledged to maintain regulatory standards that are “as high as” the EU’s, even if they are achieved by different means.

. Warned that the European economy would lose out if it tried to punish the City.

. Set out two options for maintaining light-touch customs arrangements between Britain and the EU.

. Confirmed she was willing to walk away without a deal if the EU tried to punish Britain.

She also said that Britain could pay to remain in EU regulatory bodies in areas such as chemicals, medicine and aerospace – promised to negotiate a deal on fishing that would give British trawlermen a “fairer allocation” of fishing rights and said that Britain would demand “domestic flexibility” in areas like the emerging digital sector to prevent tech start-ups being held back by EU red tape.

On the critical balance between divergence from EU rules and access to the single market, Mrs May said she expected many regulations for traded goods to remain “substantially similar” in the immediate future.

But, critically, she said Parliament would be free to change them in future “in the knowledge that there may be consequences for our market access”. She said disputes would be settled by an “independent mechanism” – not EU judges.

Mrs May said she would not be knocked off course by hardliners on either side of the debate, saying she wanted the count.

In the run-up to the speech, Eurosceptic MPs were on red alert for any signs of backsliding.

However, most appear content that Mrs May had struck the right balance. Former Conservative leader and Brexiteer Iain Duncan Smith described the speech as “pretty good”.

And Tory ex-chancellor Lord Lamont said it was now time for diehard Remainers on the Tory benches to stop undermining Mrs May.

Sarah Wollaston, a leading Tory Remainer, described the speech as “pragmatic and positive”.

But diehard Remainer Anna Soubry struck a sour note, about Mrs May’s blueprint, saying: “It will not deliver the same benefits, the positives to our economy, as we currently have.”

The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier welcomed the “clarity” that Britain wanted a clean break, saying this would help Brussels finalise its negotiating guidelines.

 

AT the end of last week, and for the best part of an hour, Theresa May rattled off her Brexit objectives in a huge number of areas: agriculture, fisheries, migration, the Irish border, manufacturing, financial services, energy, science, haulage, nuclear safety, education and culture. People said they wanted more detail about her negotiating position prior to Britain leaving the European Union, and that’s exactly what she gave them.

What emerged was a pragmatic, common sense approach behind which she appears to have succeeded in uniting Cabinet colleagues as diverse as the Europhile Philip Hammond and the hardline Brexiteer Boris Johnson.

In some areas, Britain is bound to remain closely aligned with our partners’ rules and trading standards. But as Mrs May pointed out, this is true of every trade deal ever struck.

Crucially, however, the red lines the Prime Minister drew from the start remain intact. Come what may, we will be taking back control of our borders, laws and money – with British judges and a sovereign British Parliament no longer obliged to take orders from Brussels or the European Court of Justice.

For the avoidance of doubt, Mrs May spelled out yet again that this will mean withdrawing from the single market and customs union. There will be no second referendum.

. See also Britain will be entitled to walk away without a deal with the EU

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