European states have grown increasingly alarmed over potential repercussions of recently escalating international crises, in particular Iran’s and North Korea nuclear programs. In their view, not only can widening disagreements between parties involved in these crises increase the possibility of a collapse of past efforts, but can also make it more likely that new military confrontations that will undoubtedly impact the interests of these states, will break out. In the case of Iran, efforts to settle the crisis have led to a temporary compromise over its nuclear program through the July 14, 2015 nuclear agreement with the P5+1 group of world powers, including the three European states UK, France and Germany.
The involved states are now making diligent efforts. These efforts are to preserve what they view as gains made from the nuclear deal with Iran, and in particular those restrictions imposed on its nuclear activities and placing them under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). These efforts also work on improving the odds of success in pursuing similar approaches to other international crises, primarily with North Korea amid an ongoing standoff and exchange of threats between Pyongyang and Washington.
New Approach
This view prompted German Chancellor Angela Merkel on September 10, 2017 to suggest that nuclear talks with Iran could serve as a model for efforts to settle the North Korea crisis saying that she “could imagine such a format being used to end the North Korea conflict. Europe and especially Germany should be prepared to play a very active part in that.”
Merkel’s call serves as a highly significant indication that Germany continues to believe that the 2015 landmark nuclear agreement with Iran has produced several benefits for European states, including prevention of a military confrontation in the Middle East that would have imposed negative repercussions on their interests in the region. This means Germany’s positions on this particular issue is largely different from the policy pursued by US President Donald Trump who continues to criticize the Iran nuclear deal over “loopholes” that allow Iran to circumvent it leaving the world power unable to prove its violations and punish it with new international sanctions.
Hence, it can be said that attempts to deal with the North Korea nuclear crisis using an Iran-style approach have become a major cause of disagreement between Germany and the United States. While Merkel called for adopting the 2015 agreement with Iran as a model for negotiations with North Korea to reach a solution to the crisis, US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, in statements on September 5, 2017 warned that Iran could become another North Korea. Haley said that if left unchanged, the Iran nuclear deal could allow Tehran to pose the same kind of missile threat to U.S. national security as North Korea, because the deal which expires after ten years can enable Iran’s military to continue its march toward the missile technology to deliver a nuclear warhead. Haley said, “We must consider the day when the terms of the JCPOA sunset. That’s a day when Iran’s military may very well already have the missile technology to send a nuclear warhead to the United States – a technology that North Korea only recently developed.”
Without a doubt, this argument indicates that the United States continues to believe that it is still possible to work on amending the current nuclear deal so as to provide for all issues, a move which Iran will not accept.
Various Hardships
The US warnings reveal three existing obstacles that can block any attempts by Germany to push for an Iran-style approach to the crisis with North Korea. The first obstacle is that the Iran-style approach itself is vulnerable to collapse due to widening disagreement between Iran and the United States.
Although the US Administration on July 17, 2017 certified to Congress that Iran is technically complying with the nuclear deal and can continue enjoying nuclear sanctions relief, Washington continues to insist that Tehran breaches the spirit of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JOCPA). The US administration has even widened disagreement over the deal especially after Haley visited the IAEA on August 23, 2017 to press the agency to inspect Iranian military bases to ensure that they are not concealing activities banned by the 2015 nuclear deal, a demand that Iran described a dream that will never come true.
Iran also insists on exploiting loopholes in the nuclear agreement, especially regarding ballistic missile tests, while also continuing to threaten to freeze the deal, resume its nuclear program and return to return to uranium enrichment at the pre-JCPOA level of 20 percent.
Chief of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi, in an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, was the last to make such threats. He warned that if the U.S. leaves the treaty and Europe follows suit, the nuclear deal will certainly collapse and Iran will go back to what it was before and, technically speaking, to a much higher level.
A second challenge facing Germany’s bid is that the United States would possibly reject such approach because it believes the nuclear deal is riddled with no easy loopholes that can pave the way for Iran to make a nuclear bomb if its top leadership makes a political decision. In other words, the United States might very well reject any approach that would lead to repeat what it views as mistakes made in the nuclear deal with Iran if the door is open for talks with North Korea to reach a peaceful settlement to the crisis over its nuclear and missile programs.
The third obstacle for Germany is a lack of any signs suggesting that North Korea is willing to accept an Iran-style approach, especially because of its significant rapprochement with Iran over several issues. Such rapprochement would drive North Korea to adopt a vision similar to that embraced by Iran’s hardliners regarding issues of the nuclear deal, and would even threaten to tear up the deal in the coming period. On Sunday, September 17, 2017, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Iran would react strongly to any “wrong move” by the United States on Tehran’s nuclear deal. The threat came after President Donald Trump on Thursday accused Iran of violating the “spirit” of the agreement.
In other words, Pyongyang’s view might be that such problems lie in the recent significant shift in the policy pursued by the United States on the nuclear agreement, due to the obvious contrasting positions of the Trump Administration and its predecessor, the Obama administration. This is what can push the Trump team to be reluctant to repeat once again or approve any European efforts towards adopting the same approach to North Korea.
That said, it can possibly be concluded that Angela Merkel’s call for adopting Iran-style nuclear talks with North Korea does indicate that European states have substantial fears regarding the potential trajectories of the ongoing standoff between North Korea and the United States, as well as Washington’s simultaneous escalation with Tehran. Nonetheless, it appears that Merkel’s call would not attract special attention from international powers involved in both nuclear crises, due to the several obstacles blocking efforts to translate it into actions on the ground.
