TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said that France, Germany, and the UK have bowed to “the U.S. diktat” for 20 months.

“For 20 months, the E3-following UK appeasement policy-has bowed to US diktat,” Zarif tweeted late on Monday.

Zarif said this policy “hasn’t gotten it anywhere-and it never will.” 

The chief diplomat added that the three European countries can save the 2015 nuclear deal “but not by appeasing the bully & pressuring the complying party.”

In the same tweet, Zarif also said, “Rather it should muster the courage to fulfill its own obligations.”

France, Britain, and Germany plan to trigger on Tuesday the dispute mechanism in the Iran nuclear deal, Reuters reported.

Two European diplomats said on Tuesday the decision was aimed at saving the deal by discussing with Iran what it should do to reverse its decision on suspending all the nuclear limits.

The three countries were to inform the European Union on Tuesday they plan to trigger the mechanism.

U.S. President Donald Trump quit the nuclear deal, officially known as the JCPOA, in May 2018 and introduced the harshest ever sanctions in history on Iran as part of his administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy against Iran.

The European countries failed to protect Iran’s benefits from the deal and after patiently watching for more than a year and seeing no clear action from the other signatories of the nuclear deal, Iran started to partially reduce its commitments.

Iran’s action is based on articles 26 and 36 of the JCPOA. Tehran has repeatedly announced it will reverse its decisions once other signatories fulfill their commitments.

Under the 2015 nuclear agreement endorsed by the UN Security Council resolution 2231, Iran agreed to put limits on its nuclear activities in exchange for the termination of economic and financial bans.

UK is parroting U.S. line, Zarif says

Zarif said in another tweet that the “UK is parroting U.S. line”, criticizing London’s appeasement to Washington.

“UK is parroting US line & blindly abetting its terrorist adventurism in our region. The last time UK was dragged along to infamy by the US was in Iraq war. How did that work out?” he asked in his tweet.

He added, “Take the honorable path for a change: settle court-ordered debt to Iranians.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has backed the U.S. assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on January 3.

In a phone conversation with Johnson on Thursday, President Hassan Rouhani said that London would not have been secure if it had not been for Soleimani’s relentless campaign against terrorists in Iraq and Syria.

NA/PA