Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is testing the Trump era schism between the US and Western Europe.
In an op-ed published by The New York Times on Sunday, Zarif said Iran is “cautioning European countries against wavering on issues beyond the scope of the nuclear agreement and following in lock step behind the White House.”
The agreement limiting Iran to civilian nuclear activity was signed in 2015 by every permanent member of the UN Security Council, Iran and Germany—to minimize the chance of replicating the political climate that paved the way for the US invasion of Iraq, in 2003.
“As the nuclear deal and the Middle East enter uncharted and potentially combustible territory, it is imperative Europe helps ensure that we don’t find ourselves repeating history,” Zarif said.
In October, Trump threatened to unilaterally pull the US out of the accord, asking Congress to revise the agreement.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) have proposed legislation that would eliminate sunset terms—effectively asking Iran to submit to permanent scrutiny of its civilian nuclear program.
Thus far, the proposal has gotten little traction, attracting opposition from Democrats and Western European diplomats.
In November, Capitol Hill played host to high profile lobbying efforts warning against Iran deal alterations. Chief foreign envoys who visited Congress included British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson and the European Commission’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, according to CNN.
“Unfortunately, for the past 11 months, the response to Iran’s good faith has been tantrums from the Trump administration,” Zarif wrote in his column.
Even if European envoys don’t see eye-to-eye with Zarif, many are openly wondering the extent to which close Transatlantic relations will survive President Trump.
Last week, for example, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said that “even after Trump leaves the White House, relations with the US will never be the same.”
In his op-ed, Zarif also defended Iran’s missile program and its “influence in the Middle East.”
Iran and some of its regional allies have backed the Syrian Government and its vicious counterinsurgency amid the country’s Civil War.
More than 100,000 Syrian civilians have been killed since the war started in 2011, according to the Syrian Observatory on Human Rights. The clear majority of these deaths can be attributed to military forces that stayed loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the London-based group said. Overall there have been about 340,000 people killed in the fighting, including 119,000 fatal casualties suffered by loyalist forces.
Zarif said Iranian efforts in Syria were aimed at finding a political resolution meant “to bring an overdue end to the bloodshed.”
The Iranian Foreign Minister, meanwhile, also hit out at regional rival Saudi Arabia for “its brutal bombing campaign in Yemen.” The Saudi-led coalition started attacking Yemen in 2015 with US support, after Houthi rebels overthrew the government.
The war has killed about 10,000 Yemeni civilians to date. Millions of Yemenis remain at risk from disease and famine as a result of blockades imposed by Saudi forces. The humanitarian situation last week led the White House to publicly call on Saudi Arabia to ease up on its blockade.
The US and its Saudi allies accused Iran of destabilizing Yemen by kindling the initial Houthi uprising, but never substantiated the charges.
