EU Failures on Iran ‘Unacceptable’

Date: 19 January 2019 - 21:37

News ID: ۶۲۲۳۶

TEHRAN (Dispatches) – Iran’s former foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi on Saturday decried the European Union’s inability to oblige their companies to cooperate with Tehran, calling it unacceptable.
"The fact that the European governments are unable to support European companies and direct them to cooperate with Iran is neither defensible nor acceptable,” Kharrazi told a delegation from Italy’s Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), a non-profit organization.
The former foreign minister, who is now the head of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, lambasted the EU’s delay in putting into operation a special purpose vehicle (SPV) which purports to keep trade channels open with Iran.
The failure, he said, demonstrates that the European governments are not reliable and raises questions about the bloc’s viability while it is unable to control even its own companies.
Kharrazi warned the Europeans against submitting to U.S. demands and that the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, officially called the JCPOA, will affect Europe’s security.
"The U.S. has held Europe hostage; therefore, Europe will face more problems” if it acts according to American wishes, he said.
Kharrazi called on the EU to learn from China and Russia how to stand against the U.S. "European interests require that it takes practical measures on the JCPOA.”
On Friday, Reuters claimed that Iranian officials abruptly stood up, walked out and slammed the door during a meeting with European envoys in Tehran on Jan. 8.
Citing four EU diplomats, the news agency said the French, British, German, Danish, Dutch, and Belgian diplomats in the Iranian foreign ministry room had incensed the officials with a message that Europe could no longer tolerate ballistic missile tests in Iran.
The next day, the European Union imposed its first sanctions on Iran since world powers agreed the nuclear agreement with Tehran.
Reuters said Iran’s firing of short-range ballistic missiles at terrorist targets in Syria on Sept. 30, missile tests and a satellite launch this month have niggled Western powers.
Tehran says the missile tests are purely defensive.
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, said on Thursday Europe "would do nothing in our interest.”
"The Europeans are worse than the Americans. If not, they are not any better,” he said.
Last March, France, Britain and Germany proposed asset freezes and travel bans on the IRGC and Iranian companies and groups developing the missile program.
Now, a similar set of measures is being prepared, Reuters quoted three diplomats as saying.