Jens
Stoltenberg: ‘The important thing now is to de-escalate and avoid further
increases in tensions on the region.’ Photograph: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty
Nato chief
holds back from endorsing US killing of Suleimani
Jens
Stoltenberg condemns Iran but stresses drone attack decision was not made by
Nato
Patrick
Wintour in London and Jennifer Rankin in Brussels
Mon 6 Jan
2020 18.28 GMTLast modified on Mon 6 Jan 2020 22.37 GMT
The Nato
secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, had said it is imperative that Iran does
not acquire a nuclear weapon, but held back from endorsing the US assassination
of the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani in Baghdad, stressing it was a decision
made by the US, and not by either Nato or the coalition against Islamic State.
His
intervention came as the EU commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, also
warned Iran that “it is imperative that it return to the nuclear deal”, remarks
that could presage a European decision to abandon the deal if Iran does not
recommit itself to its terms.
Stoltenberg
was speaking after he said Nato diplomats in Brussels had been briefed by video
conference by US state department and Pentagon officials on their rationale for
killing Suleimani.
He did not
specify whether the US gave any intelligence assessments to back claims made by
officials in America that Suleimani was masterminding attacks on US diplomats
likely to take place in the weeks or months ahead.
Iranian
sources have endorsed Iraqi government claims that Suleimani was in Baghdad
last week to personally convey an Iranian message in response to Saudi Arabian
calls for a reconciliation process. “He was on a peace mission,” Iranian
diplomats claimed. A similar claim had been made by the Iraqi prime minister,
Adel Abdul-Mahdi.
Stoltenberg
confirmed that Nato training operations in Iraq were being suspended due to
fallout from the US strike on Suleimani, but he said he wanted them to restart
as soon as possible.
The Iraqi
parliament has called for the removal of US troops from Iraq, but there is less
clarity whether coalition forces will be allowed to continue to train the Iraqi
army to fight Islamic State.
Stoltenberg
stressed: “The important thing now is to de-escalate and avoid further
increases in tensions on the region.”
He added:
“We are united in condemning Iran’s support of a variety of different terrorist
groups. At the meeting today, allies called for restraint and de-escalation. A
new conflict would be in no one’s interest. So Iran must refrain from further
violence and provocations.”
Iran on
Sunday responded to the attack by saying it could in future free itself from
all the constraints imposed by the nuclear deal signed in 2015, but at the same
time said it would continue to allow UN nuclear inspectors from the IAEA to
visit Iranian nuclear sites in line with the existing regime. Iran argues that
this move, its fifth and final step away from the deal, does not represent a
full-scale tearing up of the nuclear deal from which the US withdrew 18 months
ago.
France’s
foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Monday that European powers would
decide in coming days whether to launch a dispute resolution process that could
lead to a reinstatement of United Nations sanctions on Iran that were lifted
under the deal.
“The
repeated violations (by Iran) leave us today asking about the long-term
validity of this accord. We are considering launching the dispute mechanism
resolution...We will take a decision in the coming days,” Jean-Yves Le Drian
told BFM-TV.
Advocates
of the deal point out that Tehran, contrary to expectations on Sunday, did not
announce that it would increase its levels of uranium enrichment to 20%. it
also did not announce how many new centrifuges it intends to build. But it did
give itself complete leeway to break out of any of the commitments within the
deal. Iran said it was willing to return to the deal, if sanctions were lifted
and benefits previously offered to Tehran in terms of increased trade occurred.
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