French President Emmanuel Macron and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani have agreed to work together in the coming weeks to preserve the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, Macron's office said in a statement.
In a telephone conversation with Rouhani that lasted more than an hour Sunday, Macron also proposed that the discussions be broadened to cover "three additional, indispensable subjects," namely Iran's ballistic missile programs, its nuclear activities beyond 2025, and "the main regional crises" in the Middle East, the Elysee said.
The United States has been trying to drum up support for new sanctions against Iran and has repeatedly threatened to exit the 2015 agreement between Iran and six world powers.
The agreement's goal was to curb Iran's nuclear aspirations in exchange for lifting crippling economic sanctions. However, U.S. President Donald Trump has strongly criticized the agreement for being too weak and has set a May 12 deadline for the powers to fix its "terrible flaws" or the U.S. will withdraw its support and essentially destroy the deal.
Britain, France and Germany have agreed that retaining the existing nuclear deal remains the best way of stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons, British Prime Minister Theresa May's office said in a statement on Sunday.
May spoke with Macron and with German Chancellor Angela Merkel by phone this week and the leaders agreed the deal may need to be broadened to cover areas such as ballistic missiles, what happens when the deal expires, and what they consider Iran's destabilizing regional activity, the statement said.
"They committed to continue working closely together and with the U.S. on how to tackle the range of challenges that Iran poses – including those issues that a new deal might cover," it said.
Speaking on a Middle East tour on Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington would abandon the nuclear deal unless talks with European partners yield improvements.
"We've certainly made some [progress with the Europeans]," he said. "There is still work to do. They said: 'Great, we will support you if you get the fixes.'"
