THE HAGUE: France will finalise its own analysis on damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities in the next few days and then compare results with allies, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday, after US and Israeli strikes.
Speaking to reporters after a NATO summit in The Hague, Macron said he would meet the head of the UN atomic watchdog Rafael Grossi in Paris later to discuss his latest assessment.
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“We are finalising our analysis with everything we have and then it will be confronted with the analysis of other interested countries, obviously the Americans, other Europeans, Israelis,” Macron said.
President Donald Trump said earlier on Wednesday that the damage from the strikes was severe and “there was obliteration”, though he also conceded that US intelligence had been inconclusive.
France, along with Britain and Germany, is party to a 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran and prior to the war between Israel and Iran had sought to play a role to negotiate a solution to the Tehran’s contested nuclear programme.
Following the strikes, the European powers have few levers and diplomacy has been thrown into disarray.
However, they will at some point need to make a decision whether to re-impose United Nations sanctions on Iran before the UN resolution ratifying the 2015 deal expires in October.
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“We have a timeline that is running and decisions need to be made by the summer,” Macron said.
DISAGREEMENT ON SCALE OF DAMAGE
Separately, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov on Wednesday said the United States and Iran disagree when it comes to how much damage U.S. air strikes caused to Iranian nuclear facilities.
Ushakov said Moscow welcomed the ceasefire between Iran and Israel and hoped it lasted and noted what he said were differing assessments of the impact of the US attack.
“The one that carried out the strikes believes significant damage was inflicted. And the one who received these strikes believes that everything was prepared in advance and that these objects did not suffer excessive, significant damage,” Ushakov told reporters.
Earlier in the day, the Kremlin had said it thought it was too early for anyone to have an accurate picture of the extent of damage caused.