Tears From Ayatollah as Iran Mourns Dead General: Live Updates – The New York Times

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President Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal in 2018.

The European statement seemed somewhat forlorn, since its efforts to preserve the deal have been weak, hamstrung in part by a desire to maintain good relations with Washington. The statement did not support the drone strike on the Iranian general but did acknowledge American concerns, saying that, “we have condemned the recent attacks’’ on coalition forces in Iraq and “are gravely concerned by the negative role played by Iran in the region.’’

The statement called for “de-escalation” of tensions from all parties and reaffirmed the Europeans’ determination “to continuing the fight against Islamic State, which remains a priority.’’ And it called on Iraq “to continue to supply the necessary support to the coalition’’ — in other words, to not expel American and NATO troops.

The secretary general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, called an emergency meeting of the alliance’s advisers on Monday afternoon. During a news conference following the meeting Mr. Stoltenberg said NATO would be suspending training operations on the ground in Iraq.

“At our meeting today, Allies expressed their strong support for the fight against ISIS and for the NATO mission in Iraq,” he said. “In everything that we do, the safety of our personnel is paramount. As such, we have temporarily suspended our training on the ground.”

Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union foreign policy chief, posted on Twitter that while the bloc regretted Iran’s announcement on the deal, it would wait for independent verification from the international nuclear monitoring group to determine what actions would be taken.

Peter Stano, his spokesman, said during a news briefing in Brussels said that de-escalation was the goal.

“It’s in our interest as Europeans to maintain this agreement,” Mr. Stano said.

On Monday, Heiko Maas, the German foreign minister, said that the Europeans would talk to Iran and planned to come up with a coordinated response.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/06/world/middleeast/iran-soleimani-trump.html

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