German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stopped short of backing a call from her foreign minister for Europe to establish payment systems independent of the US if it wants to save the nuclear deal between Iran and major powers.

In a piece published by the Handelsblatt business daily on August 22, Heiko Maas said: “… it is indispensable that we strengthen European autonomy by creating payment channels that are independent of the United States, a European Monetary Fund and an independent SWIFT system.”

He added: “Every day the [nuclear] deal is alive is better than the highly explosive crisis that would otherwise threaten the Middle East.”

Later on August 22, Merkel responded: “On the question of independent payment systems, we have some problems in our dealings with Iran, no question, on the other hand we know that on questions of terrorist financing, for example, SWIFT is very important.”

She added that it was a priority to keep good co-operation with the US in the area of security.

Merkel acknowledged that the broad argument made by Maas’ article, calling for a new European approach to the US, was in tune with her thinking. “It was an important contribution as it expresses in other words what I have said, that the transatlantic relationship is changing, we need to take more responsibility, Europe has to take its fate into its own hands,” she told a news conference alongside the visiting president of Angola.

Reuters reported people familiar with SWIFT as saying the issue was not SWIFT but longstanding European frustration with the dollar’s dominance in global finance and the cross-border political power it confers on the US. Sanctions aimed at Tehran by Washington expose all instances of business conducted with the Iranians with any link to the US financial system, and forbid Iran from acquiring American banknotes.

“All this is about the aspiration to have an alternative to dollar payments. SWIFT is both a global standard and a messaging infrastructure, and fragmenting that would defeat the purpose of what SWIFT is about,” Nicolas Veron, a financial services specialist at Bruegel think-tank in Brussels, was reported as saying.

Heavy sanctions
US President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the nuclear deal in early May. He called it deeply flawed and announced he would be reimposing heavy sanctions against Tehran to force it to the table for a renegotiation of limits on its nuclear programme and other issues his administration was not happy with.

The first wave of those sanctions hit in early August. The next wave, which among other objectives aim to almost entirely destroy Iran’s lifeline oil export business, will kick in on November 5. Iran is already feeling the economic heat—the Iranian rial (IRR) has lost more than 50% of its value against hard currencies since April—and has pressured Europe to accelerate its efforts to salvage the nuclear pact and ringfence economic benefits that Tehran can gain from it.

The big European firms present in Iran, which fear secondary sanctions as they are connected to the US financial system, fund-raising or assets, have generally made for the exit. French energy major Total, for instance, has just officially pulled out of a multi-billion dollar gas field development project in the Persian Gulf.

The Belgium-based SWIFT global payment network facilitates the great majority of the world’s cross-border transactions. It shut out Iran in 2012 after the US and EU both agreed to impose sanctions on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear activities. The nuclear deal, signed in late 2015, lifted those sanctions after Iran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear activities.

“Given the circumstances, it is of strategic importance that we tell Washington clearly: we want to work together,” Maas wrote. “But we will not allow you to hurt our interests without consulting us.”

Along with the US and Iran, the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China signed the multilateral accord. All of those nations, apart from the US, have said the deal is working and should be left intact.

Also on August 22, White House national security advisor John Bolton denied that the Trump administration is aiming to topple Iran's government.

"Just to be clear, regime change in Iran is not American policy. But what we want is massive change in the regime's behaviour," Bolton told a news conference in Jerusalem, where he was holding talks with Israeli leaders.

Foreign policy hawk Bolton has in the past suggested the US should push for a change in government in Iran.