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Johnson, Macron, Merkel, Biden: common appeal
Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP
The USA, France, Great Britain and Germany have expressed their "great and growing concern" in the face of an expansion of the Iranian nuclear program and called for a swift return to the Vienna nuclear agreement.
This is the only way to avoid "a dangerous escalation that is not in the interests of any country," said US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, Great Britain Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Executive Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) in a joint statement.
On the sidelines of the G20 summit of leading economic powers in Rome, they discussed the imminent resumption of nuclear talks with Iran.
The four states declared that the USA was ready to return to the agreement and to "fully comply" with it.
This would also allow the sanctions to be lifted, which would fuel the ailing Iranian economy, it said.
"That will only be possible if Iran changes course." Iran's current course endangers the possibility of a return to the nuclear agreement, it said.
"We are of course betting on Iran's return to the negotiating table," said Merkel after the talks.
However, time is passing »and the enrichments are continuing in Iran.
That worries us very much. ”For this reason it was time“ to talk about what can be done to prevent Iran from being armed with nuclear weapons ”.
Iran wants to resume nuclear negotiations in Vienna in November.
The talks that had been going on since April to reinstate the 2015 nuclear deal were interrupted after the Iranian presidential election in June and the subsequent change of government.
The background to the talks is that the United States under ex-President Donald Trump unilaterally adopted the agreement in 2018 and adopted many new sanctions against Iran.
As a result, the government in Tehran began to expand its nuclear program again.
The remaining contracting parties endeavor in the Vienna talks to revive the pact.
The agreement was intended to prevent Iranian nuclear weapons from being built.
mic / dpa-afx