Concern grows over US 'grouping all Iranian activity in one bracket'
Russia and EU foreign ministers are worried about recent steps by the US to isolate and pressure Iran, says Sky's Diana Magnay.
Wednesday 15 May 2019 10:14, UK
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo arrived in the resort town of Sochi fresh from talks in Brussels where he'd been hoping to convince EU counterparts of the risks, as the US sees them, of Iran's destabilising activity in the Middle East.
Specific details and additional intelligence beyond what the US has made publicly available is surely welcome.
Neither EU foreign ministers nor Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, are wide-eyed about Iranian activity or that of its proxies in the Middle East.
But they are also believers in the JCPOA - the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or Iran Deal - which the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from a year ago.
All accept the word of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that to date, Iran has complied faithfully with its side of the bargain on the issue of denuclearisation.
All are concerned that the US groups all Iranian activity into one bracket.
All are concerned at recent steps by the US to isolate and pressure Iran, including most recently the decision to deploy an aircraft carrier and bomber task force into the Gulf and the possible deployment of 120,000 US troops in the case of any Iranian attack on US interests, according to reports in The New York Times.
Mr Pompeo refused to be drawn on the reported troop deployment, saying that was a matter for the US Department of Defence.
He said the US did not want war with Iran, simply that the Trump administration wanted Iran to behave like a normal country - to desist from assassination campaigns on European soil, to stop their support for Hezbollah and for the Houthis in Yemen.
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Russia has Iran's ear. It is Tehran's partner in Syria and in the Astana peace process, which tries to secure a resolution to the Syrian conflict.
Sergei Lavrov said Russia would do its part in trying to ensure the situation did not tip into military conflict.
"A task for diplomats," Mr Lavrov said, "and I think the US side is committed to finding a political solution."
But just as there is very little trust between the US and Russia, there is also very little faith in Europe that the Trump administration has the will or the wherewithal to keep a potentially escalatory situation in the Middle East vis-a-vis Iran in check.
Mr Pompeo may cut a (slightly) more accommodating figure in his talks with Russian counterparts than US National Security Advisor John Bolton, who last visited Moscow in October last year to announce the US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
Mr Bolton has long championed the notion of regime change in Iran and it would seem as though for now, the hawks are calling the shots in the Trump administration.
The US-Russian trajectory may be enjoying a post-Mueller bump but that is as US-Iranian relations take a major downward turn.
As Mr Lavrov said today, speaking perhaps for more than just Moscow, "right now we're in a spiral and we're getting sucked in".