Putin plays with f ire in his new doctrine
Of late Vladimir Putin has shifted Russia’s nuclear doctrine to a more directly and openly retaliatory posture in response to any attack by Ukraine or any NATO country using longer-range US missiles.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Monday said that the Islamic republic is ready for interaction and cooperation with Europe to settle nuclear deal-related problems, according to the reports.
President Rouhani made the remarks while meeting with Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, who arrived in Tehran for talks on a range of issues.
The two-day visit opened with a meeting with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, ahead of talks with Rouhani and parliament speaker Ali Larijani.
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The nuclear deal between Tehran and a group of world powers has been crumbling since US President Donald Trump withdrew from it in 2018, and Washington has since stepped up sanctions and a campaign of “maximum pressure” against Iran.
Tehran has gradually stepped back from its own commitments under the deal, while military tensions with the US brought the two countries to the brink of full-blown confrontation last month.
He expressed the hope that under new EU representative the relations between the Islamic republic and Europe will improve.
On January 22, the head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi criticised three European countries — Britain, France and Germany — for their recent triggering of the dispute mechanism in the Iran nuclear deal.
Last year, Britain, France and Germany warned Iran against any further breaches of the international nuclear deal signed in 2015.
Iran has already taken three separate calibrated steps away from the deal and has warned it will take a fourth in November unless the US lifts economic sanctions.
Last month, the three European countries announced they had taken steps to trigger the dispute mechanism with Iran in response to Tehran’s back-off from the nuclear commitments over the past months.
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