German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas decried on Saturday the US escalation on Iran, saying Europe is counting on dialogue rather than rhetorical armament.
‘The hard course of the US in the nuclear dispute with Iran is wrong. It remains incomprehensible to us that the US unilaterally retired from the nuclear agreement with Tehran,’ Maas was cited by the German daily ‘Passauer Neue Presse’ (Saturday edition).
‘Unlike US President Donald Trump, the EU firmly believes that a maximum pressure strategy will not help us,’ he said, stressing that Europe is counting on dialogue rather than rhetorical armament.
The German minister said the agreement is currently the surest way to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons, calling on Terhran to ‘continue to implement its obligations under the agreement, without any compromise’.
Maas warned of a ‘conflagration’ in the Middle East, which could blow up by ‘unforeseen events’ against the declared will of the US and Iran. There are ‘a number of crises and conflicts’ in the region: from Iraq via Syria to Yemen,’ he said. ‘Already one of these conflicts could trigger a conflagration. The risk of escalation should be clear to all concerned parties,’ he warned.
On Friday after a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of a Council of Europe meeting in Helsinki, Maas called on Russia to join efforts to rescue the nuclear agreement with Iran. ‘Even Russia is a partner in the nuclear agreement,’ Maas said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has ratified in 14 reports that Iran has stuck to the 2015 nuclear deal despite the US wiathdrawal last year.