UK Foreign Secretary Signals That Britain Could Pull Out of Iran Nuclear Deal

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 08: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (R) and United Kingdom Foreign
Getty Images
Oliver JJ Lane

Iran’s failure to comply with the terms of the Iran nuclear deal is putting at risk and the United Kingdom could even pull out, Britain’s foreign minister has heavily implied following meetings with Mike Pompeo in Washington.

While the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal — formally known as the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — in 2018 with president Trump calling it “defective” and not an effective way of preventing Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, European nations have since stuck to the agreement. This wall of opposition to Trump’s policy, led by the European Union itself which has said it will “spare no efforts” to keep the Iran deal alive, may be about to crack as the United Kingdom cast significant doubts on the deal.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has now heavily implied question marks exist over the future support for the Iran nuclear deal from the United Kingdom, with The Times reporting his remarks following a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week. While making clear the preferred direction for the British government would be preserving the Iran deal with Iran meeting its obligations, Raab also acknowledged this now looked unlikely.

He said: “We are absolutely committed, as our American and European partners are, to avoid Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.”

“We’ve obviously been committed to the JCPOA, but we’ve reached a point where non-compliance has been so acute in the most recent steps taken by Iran that obviously we’re going to be looking very hard at what should happen next… We want to see Iran come back to full compliance.”

The Daily Telegraph reports if Iran fails to respond to the Dispute Resolution Mechanism built into the JCPOA, it could trigger the United Kingdom leaving the Iran nuclear deal. The comments follow others by the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson at the dispatch box on Wednesday when he offered a near-condonement of Trump’s policy towards Iran by remarking Qassem Soleimani “had the blood of British troops on his hands”.

If the United Kingdom is considering a change of heart of Iran and moving away from the European Union, Brussels-mandated support of the nuclear deal, it is some way behind EU member state Hungary, which has called on the whole continent to adopt a closer position to the U.S. and Israel over Iran. Conservative leader Viktor Orban — who enjoys a strong relationship with President Trump and get the global standard for border control in 2015 when he reduced illegal immigration to his nation by 99% after completing the nation’s southern border wall, said that: “I would like for the European stance, which is not clear on this Iranian issue, to be oriented toward the Israeli-United States stance.”

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.