American Delegates Reiterate US ‘Maximum Pressure” Campaign on Iran to Allies, While Iran Agrees to Stay in Nuclear Deal
by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – Acting Defense Secretary Mark Esper met with NATO officials in Brussels Thursday, the same day special envoy Brian Hook was in Paris to drum up support from nuclear deal partners for the US’s position on Iran.
In a closed-door session, Esper assured allies that the US was not looking for war with the Islamic Republic, and was ready to hammer out an updated nuclear agreement “with no preconditions,” according to NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg.
“One important message is that the United States has so clearly stated that they don’t want a war,” Stoltenberg told reporters after the meeting of Esper’s comments, which reportedly opened with the US intention to avoid a military conflict in the Middle East.
On Friday, European signatories to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) met with Iranian leaders in Vienna to espouse the unanimous opinion that Iran must stay in the nuclear deal even in spite of US sanctions, the meeting yielding a promise from Iran to do so, according to a Chinese delegate, despite former threats by the Persian Gulf country to begin enriching uranium beyond allowed levels.
Hook, in London the same day following his Paris stop, reiterated to reporters the US’s plan to deprive Iran of $50 billion in oil assets and to penalize all transactions between European companies and Iran, promising the US will also begin looking into secretive channels of oil trade between Iran and China.