European foreign ministers insisted on the return to calm in Iraq and respect for the moribund Iranian civil nuclear agreement (JCPoA) on Friday 10 January at an extraordinary meeting convened after the recent acute crisis between the United States and Iran on Iraqi territory.
“The region can not afford another war”, said the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, after the meeting. “We call for urgent deescalation”, he added.
Mr Borrell considered the risk of destabilisation in Iraq to be “the main concern” of the Twenty-Eight, stressing that the EU would continue to support the country in the military, security and economic fields. He referred to a strong mandate of the Twenty-Eight to contribute to the search for a regional political solution through dialogue with all actors, including Iran.
The Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister will be in Brussels on Monday 13 January.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who attended the Ministerial meeting, called for the resumption of the training of Iraqi forces in the fight against Daesh as soon as the situation on the ground allows.
JCPoA. Mr Borrell said that without this nuclear agreement, Iran “would be today a nuclear power”. In his view, it is in the EU’s interest to preserve it for as long as possible in order to avoid the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Regretting the US withdrawal from the agreement, the High Representative called on Iran to return to “full compliance with JCPoA without delay”.
After the American disengagement from the JCPoA agreement and the economic sanctions decided by Donald Trump, the Iranian authorities have gradually reneged on their commitments. The elimination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani by an American strike in Baghdad has accelerated the questioning of the agreement, as Tehran indicated that the limits set on the number of centrifuges used to enrich uranium would no longer be respected. But the IAEA will be able to continue to conduct its inspections in the field.
On Friday morning, French Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian estimated that at this rate, it would take Iran “one to two years” to acquire nuclear weapons. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion with Agathe Cherki)