These are the headlines we are tracking for you in this episode of On the News Line:
European trade in Iran
Days after the US president caused controversy by withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, the other signatories of the accord are engaged in a flurry of political activity to salvage the agreement. After the 2015 nuclear deal was struck, the US closest allies particularly the European powers moved quickly to invest in Iran. Now given Donald Trump’s call for re-imposing nuclear-related sanctions on Tehran, there’s a great deal of uncertainty about the fate of those European businesses.
U-turn by Russia
Russia has withdrawn an earlier decision to sell its advanced S300 anti-missile defense systems to Syria. Moscow says Syria doesn’t need the missile shield. Syria has been fighting a foreign-backed insurgency since 2011. Russia has helped Damascus in its fight but Moscow’s latest decision to not sell S300 missiles to Syria has fostered speculations as to what Russia’s motive is.