US President Donald Trump finally confirmed what was widely expected, announcing from the Oval Office on Tuesday that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.
“This was a horrible, one-sided deal that never, ever should have been made,” Trump said, adding, “It didn’t bring peace, and it never will.”
The decision, though not a surprise, deals a blow to French President Emmanuel Macron’s extensive efforts to preserve the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the official name of the deal, including plans to craft a complementary agreement that might assuage some concerns in Washington and Israel.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian media that Moscow was prepared to negotiate a new deal, should it help to preserve the 2015 agreement.
“If the French president’s logic is to be followed, the JCPOA should stay in force, but negotiations are necessary over the future of this plan after 2025, the missile program and Iran’s regional policies,” Ryabkov was quoted by TASS as saying. “All this is negotiable. This is evidence that France is determined to preserve the JCPOA.”
Ryabkov added that, despite Israel’s critical stance on the JCPOA, the two countries remained engaged in “comprehensive discourse” on the issue.
“The deal would have been acceptable for Israel, had Iran agreed to the toughest conditions without any reservations,” he said. “In classical diplomacy it is the equal share of partakers’ disagreement and discontent that determines the seriousness of agreements and their viability.”
More reason to marginalize US role in Korean peacetalks to ceremonial roles.
All the western pundits threw pages and pages of comments about how to verify denuclearization of NK, even here on Asia times. These OUTSIDER pundits misses the point: anyone clear headed will understand and know that if Inter-Korean relations, and all immediate neighbor relations improves beyond certain point without "inputs" from unhelpful thrid parties, NK will be robbed of majority of reasons to use or holdon to its nuclear arsenal. It wont provide NK with any leverage or gains anymore now or into the future.
Now that everything needed has already gone onto the rails, best to keep unstable meddlers out of any meanful way of affecting the outcome.
Now if only someone can do similar cleanups in other troubled areas on this tiny Earth we all live on…