eventually clears away, but we see this line of cloud, whether france returning to the east coast ringing showers to the extreme south—east. cloud across west and northern ireland, but elsewhere clear and cool ireland, but elsewhere clear and cool. monday, high pressure building, pretty good for most of the country. more clout and a future was across the east and south—east. it had a cloud across the web, but elsewhere warm and sunny. top textures of 20 celsius. —— top temperatures. hello, and a warm welcome to dateline london. this week's news has been dominated by news from and about the middle east. we'll discuss what happens now, given donald trump's abandonment of the iran nuclear deal. we'll also consider the prospects for the forthcoming north korea summit. my guests this week, janet daley, columnist with the sunday telegraph. from bloomberg markets, stryker mcguire.

the iranian writer amir tahiri. and the arab affairs writer abdel barri atwan. welcome to you all. so, president trump called the iran nuclear agreement — signed in 2015 by iran, the five permanent members of the un security council and germany — a "horrible, one—sided deal", and pulled the us out of it, reimposing sanctions. many european leaders had, over the last couple of weeks, urged him not to and france has since floated the idea of maintaining the agreement. what will iran do next? and what does it mean for relations across the middle east? an awful lot to grapple with. let's start with the deal itself. he had promised to do this and he said he would come followed through on it, was the right to pull the us out? he thinks so. he made this campaign promise long before he knew very much about frankly what was going on and before he knew

much about the treaty. in fact he made it at a time when he did not expect to be president of the united states. he is sticking to it. i think almost anybody you talk to has some problems with the agreement. it was never meant to be the kind of end solution to the problem, it was meant to be a kind of intermediate step and a very intermediate step. there are people who probably understand or appreciate the simplicity of trump's decision, but he just seems to have this thing about chaos and he seems to believe that chaos can be very productive. and i'm afraid we are about to find out. and how much of it was about the fact that the 2015 deal was agreed in the 0bama administration? with trump, number one it is a campaign promise, number two it is his concept

of america first which now seems to be america alone. and number three, it is undoing the 0bama legacy. and number four it is what is in it for me, trump? those are his four driving forces behind everything he does. and we will talk more about the future but in terms of immediate iranian reaction, in terms of whether the deal was it working for the iranian state, for ordinary iranian people? before we go to that if you want to do a bit of trump bashing, one story, if you want to look at the situation and the reality of the story, stryker talked of the treaty and the signature, nobody has signed it, it is not a treaty. it is not an agreement, this is a letter from the assistant

secretary of legal affairs which says it had no legal basis, nobody has signed it. and you can ask any of the so—called participants in this. it is diplomacy. they are prone to circumvent everything. therefore there was no treaty for trump to come out of at all because he was not in it. he has not reimposed sanctions, he hasjust stopped suspending the sanctions that were there and has not happened yet. there is indeed a holding period. it is a mess, iran has suffered a lot because of this so—called deal. when you say that iran has suffered, do you mean ordinary iranians? the government as well, the embassy cannot open a bank account, it is forced to pay its employees in cash. why does boris johnson not let them open a bank account? the french and germans and russians have cheated.

they said they would give iran $5 billion credit line. they have not done it. the chinese are sitting on $20 billion of iranian money, they say they can only have chinese goods. iran has been cheated all over the place. of course, the other side, iran has also cheated because the enriched uranium stocks have not been sent out of iran, the plutonium plant has not been redesigned. the inspection talks with iaea have not led anywhere. most sides have cheated, you want everybody to cheat and continue, it's ok but what i suggest is, come back, if you are really serious, turn this deal into a treaty, sign it and have an approved by your parliaments so it is not optional for somebody to come in or out. it is not something in which anybody can come in and come out.

there was no punishment, there is a mechanism for inspection of iran's compliance. so are you saying he did the right thing, trump? that he was just recognising the reality? i don't care about trump. we go into this story of trump bashing or trump is good or bad. he is irrelevant because he was not in it to come out. united states committed itself to this agreement. france, britain, germany, there were five years of negotiations in order to reach this deal. everybody should commit themselves. we saw it on television, when they celebrated the signing of this agreement. nobody signed it. there is no signature. it is an understanding,

a verbal agreement. once you commit yourself to this agreement, you have to respect your commitment. nobody did respect it. have they lift the sanctions? have they released the money? the intent was that this would improve the quality of life of the population and they would be able to have a more liberalised and more prosperity, mass prosperity, that was supposed to be the point. but there is infinite scope for cynicism here, notjust on the part of the americans and iranians but russia is running this game, this show, and without russian support and enthusiasm iran will not take a step. they are putting the iranians into syria this is all about really russia having a kind of nervous breakdown after the collapse of the soviet union and wanting to re—establish itself as an entity in the world but in the interests

of russia to create as much discord and disunity in the west as possible. they are now playing a double game. apparently putin met with netanyahu last week and they have agreed there will not be a conflict that will involve, a serious conflict between their forces in iran or syria. russia actually benefits from the reimposition of sanctions on iran because the oil price goes up and the russian economy is tanking when the oil price fell. they are entirely dependent on it. this is an extraordinarily cynical game, nothing is what it appears to be. 0n the part of anyone. i am really surprised, are the british ministers, french ministers, german ministers, they were sneaking also? hang on. why the british firms... you've got it.

because there was no agreement. because that was a splendid business opportunity, that is what it is about four europe. the breakdown of communication between america and europe is that europe has found itself with a gold mine of trade opportunities which it does not want to have cut off. america enforces it own foreign policy on the world and will prevent that kind of trade in future and this will have serious consequences for the european economy. there was investment, money went in there. tourism, people started going to iran. and to that point, what does that fundamentally for people in the country, what does it mean or what does rouhani do now? first of all, nobody has invested in iran, they have signed a memorandum of understanding. but because you have this deal which is not a legal document, it cannot be legally enforced,

companies are scared. total has signed for $1 billion, not a single penny, iran has bought 100 airbuses, they can't deliver it. they are all afraid that the sanctions that are there are legal but suspending them is the prerogative of governments. trump can do it or not. theresa may can do it or not. you are a businessman, on the one side you have law and on the other you have the leaders. trump says he doesn't want to do it. there is no legal mechanism to enforce it, it is a trick, it is a lie which is damaging everybody. tourists are not going to iran in the last year. 17% decline in the last year in the number of tourists and iranians have started going abroad. some countries have agreed to not want visas.

for the practical level, what is the response from rouhani? there have been protests here in recent months. rouhani is not in charge. as a journalist, i don't like to predict the future but i think their strategy is to wait trump out, to wait first of all until the november elections in the us. if the republicans lose both houses, we keep our european allies on our side. and the second term, if trump is not elected, so much the better, in his last year he will be a lame duck. and then we try to persuade the european countries to do their part, which they are not doing. for example, why the french and german and british do not give the same export guarantees that they give for trade with everybody else apart from iran? they said that if we keep

the europeans sweet, we get rid of this wolf, donald trump. and we have the six american presidents there already and we have the seventh head. and what about the wider implications? syria has been mentioned once, there are huge implications in terms of what it means outside of iran. i believe there are three scenarios. the first is the israelis repeat what happened in 1967, the 60s war and go and attack iran and destroy its nuclear programmes there. because they enjoy the support of donald trump completely. the second scenario, america wants regime change in iran like what happened in saddam hussein's time. they said they have their nuclear programmes and they are cheating and we want to change the regime. the third scenario is to impose sanctions against iran, crippling sanctions,

completely hoping that the iranian people will revolt against rouhani and against khomeini. this is the scenario they are working on now. they are waiting for the trigger. to go ahead with it. on that third point, is there any prospect, do you think the trump administration has judged that correctly, they hope that the people might rise up? is it a grand factor into the thinking of the administration? i believe it is. either they will push people to rise against the regime or at least to weaken them. to get rid of this regime. it is the problem of exactly what happened in iraq. people were starving because of the sanctions, food is very little, people are frustrated

and they want to get rid of saddam hussein. what if the american come to topple saddam hussein, they will be happy and would not say no. that is what the american scenario in permitted now and they are waiting for that. do others think that is a likely scenario? i take your point about sanctions as far as the people and a popular uprising but no way under trump is he going to repeat the george bush invasion, toppling regime change, that is not go to happen. he is an isolationist and a protectionist, he... even withjohn bolton as national security adviser? they want to pull america out of the world, that is the point. oddly enough, so did 0bama. he was an isolationist of sorts. he wanted to pull america's commitment to defending the free world... hang on, israel is now talking to putin. there is much more going on on the back channels, much more to be cynical about as i said before. i don't think, frankly, because i am a cynic and not an optimist,

that there is going to be a war, a proper war in the traditional sense in the middle east. there is going to be a rather nasty, sordid carve up and that is all is going to happen. present iranian regime... is the revolutionary guard running its own foreign policy? that is the impression we get, that rouhani and the revolutionary guard are not singing from the same hymn sheet. what does the carve up look like? i don't know, but it will not be a war with america bringing about regime change in iran, that will not happen. if anything, russia is more likely to bring about regime change. may i say something about what is happening now because it is all about the future? i don't know in the future, but what is happening right now is that iran is trying to play it cool, even the israeli attacks have been absorbed, they did not publicise them. the 14 bodies that came, they were buried quietly for the first time, without any fanfares as was the case before. some iranians say they are creating a second situation,

ayatollahs would come, there were speeches, but nobody came. iran is trying to keep a low profile and avoid conflict. israel is not going to attack iran because israel and iran are objective allies, neither of them want the arabs to dominate the middle east in the name of sunni islam or arab islam. that is excluded. i think we will have a lot of tensions. the problem is that now i get to do a bit of trump bashing. i have the right to it, you all do it! you tell us what you feel, that is what dateline is all about! the problem is that you cannot predict trump. tomorrow he may fall in love with the supreme guide and do a bit of cheek to cheek with him

like he is doing with north korea. that is a big question, otherwise i don't see any war coming. iran is going to suffer, the europeans are going to cheat and try to dance around the issue and trump is going to declare victory by saying, i'm the man who does what he says. we have really to take a deep breath and not predict the future. the war is already there in syria. we can see the missiles. there is huge tension. the people are worried that the israeli bombing of syria three times in ten days, and this is not a war? and who is supporting the israelis to do so? it is trump. he is encouraging the israelis to ignite the war under the pretext of iranian controlling syria. why should they interfere in a country and go and bomb it? very briefly.

they want to divide syria into five zones called de—escalation zones. de—escalation zones. iran is going to get one, turkey will get one, the arabs getting one, america and kurdish allies one and russia and assad one. iran wants its de—escalation zone to be on the border with lebanon and the golan heights. the israelis don't want it, and neither do the russians or bashar al—assad. they want to go to deir ezzor among the sunnis. and they say, why are we spending money and blood here? you want to kick us out. this is the problem but in the end the russians will pursue iran to leave this de—escalation zone and get another one.

don't worry, it won't be a war. why worry?! let's see. and you predict that iran will lie low for now and this is something we will return to with a big meeting in europe this week and we will return to that. thank you for your passionate contributions so far. you mentioned other meetings. following a second surprise visit to pyongyang by the us secretary of state, mike pompeo, planning is now well underway for the historic meeting between president trump and kim jong—un which will take place in singapore on 12thjune. and the executive director of the world food programme hasjust been speaking about his visit to the country. david beasley is a former republican governor in the us. he has been talking to the bbc among others. he said he'd had unprecedented access, and he believes north korea is turning a corner in terms of its relations with the rest of the world. janet, how do you view the prospects for next month's meeting? more crystal ball gazing! more cynicism!

i think trump will be played and the north korean regime is interested in staying in power, that is principally what it is interested in. kim has been surprisingly adept. we all thought he was a lunatic and suddenly we discovered that he may be evil but he's not crazy and he will do what is necessary for him and his dynasty to remain in power. if that means, what exactly is deneutralisation of the peninsula? no, i don't think that is going to happen. they have developed their nuclear programme to such an extent that they don't mind it has to stop at this point because they are happy with the progress they have made. i cannot see them disarming in any genuine sense. and also what they mean by denuclearisation is more than that. it means the us leaves. that's right and south korea is not going to be prepared to have the us stop defending it so that is a no—no. whether we get some face—saving, something trump can come home with and say, i have made the deal

of a lifetime, this is historic and we now have north korea behaving like a civilised state, it is going to be a rogue state for as long as the kim family is in charge of it and they will see to it that they stay in charge. i believe that after abrogating this deal with iran, who will trust the americans? who will reach a deal with them after that? this is one thing. the second thing, i believe that kim outfoxed the americans, seriously. and he proved to be a shrewd politician. now he has nuclear bombs, he has ballistic missiles, very successful and can reach the american mainland. he will say, ok, come and talk to me. trump is going to talk to him, not kim talking to trump. that is why they would argue they are meeting on neutral territory. the iranian deal took five years of negotiating, five years. how many years it takes

for north korea to get rid of its nuclear programmes and ballistic missile programmes? i believe it will be a deal, author happening, with the north korean leader is emerging victorious from this and he is proving that he did not actually budge, he did not surrender. he was steadfast and he is scoring a big goal on the americans. with a little bit of what is happening now instead of who is going to win. what is happening is very serious. two things are important. the problem is that, between north korea and the united states there is a ceasefire agreement. to transfer this ceasefire agreement into a peace treaty and they are working on it. that ceasefire excludes south korea. the americans want to bring in south korea because it

did not exist at that time. it will become a tripartite and the chinese support it as well. they have said it publicly. then they will establish this as the plan of negotiations, a timetable for denuclearisation of north korea because in the south there is no nuclearforce to denuclearise so the peninsula as a whole will be denuclearised and once that has happened and there was a peace treaty signed, the american troops could also leave. of course the chinese do not want a united korea because that would be a country of 100 million, anotherjapan, a major economic power and so on. but if you can keep two koreas, one minorly communistic in the north and the other outrageously capitalistic in the south, everybody would be happy. so you think north korea is going to give up its nuclear programme? and all of the nuclear weapons it has?

i can't predict the future but this is the plan that they are going to talk and why not? people change. koreans, north koreans, have been doing a lot of tricks that they change. janet says not while that family is in charge. when i first went to china, i never thought the chinese would establish relations with the americans but they did. and a year later only. but they have a capitalistic economy, that's the thing. afterwards, they created a capitalist economy. at that time, it was in the middle of the cultural revolution, the great proletarian cultural revolution, and ‘death to america' was the main slogan, anti—american propaganda was everywhere. that was different leadership. there is different leadership in china now. this is why you had to look

into history again. deng xiaoping came later, after the chinese game... that is slightly off track. i don't want to give a lecture on chinese history! that is a whole other programme! donald trump has said he believes this will be a great success so in fact he can predict the future! that is what he will be saying. he can't predict what he is going to say tomorrow morning. i think that the best that could come out of it is some kind of face saving deal. in many ways, as many of us have been saying, really north korea has already won. because this meeting is happening? absolutely. and the chinese are winning too. nothing that is happening would happen without the chinese.

exactly. a topic for a future time. thank you very much. thank you forjoining us for our continued impassioned debate here on dateline london. there will be more the same time next week. join us if you can. thank you for watching. goodbye. pa rt part two of the weekend is certainly looking better for most of us than pa rt looking better for most of us than part one. eastern areas looking dry, some sunshine around with glorious bells and sunshine to begin the day further west and across wales.

through the afternoon rain across northern areas, particularly for the far north of england, scotland and wales will clear away. then most places will be dry. this weather front is the culprit. that will continue to move northwards and clear away from the east coast, so a bit more cloud around eastern areas. some mist, but the rain across the mainland of scotland will become confined to the northern isles later on. much of england and wales fine and dry with sunny spells and some sunshine in northern ireland. temperatures reaching highs of 16 or 18, it will feel present in that strong may sunshine. the rain becomes confined to shetland, lingering a bit overnight, this weather front returns again to eastern coastal areas by the end of the night, could bring the odd shower, some cloud for the western side of northern ireland, otherwise a clear, dry and chilly night. into

monday, high—pressure building, that will keep those weather systems at bay. looking fine and dry for most of us on monday, that weather front will continue to bring some cloud and showers to east anglia and the south—east. as it moves west will fizzle out becoming a band of cloud. cloud pushing into the north west of scotla nd cloud pushing into the north west of scotland and western parts of northern ireland, maybe the odd shower but for most of scotland, england and wales, a lovely day with lots of sunshine and warm, top temperatures of 21. tuesday looks even better, we lose the cloud and showers. this weather front pushes into the west of scotland and northern ireland, some rain on it, cooler air as well, only ten or 11 degrees the stornoway. but i had a lovely warm day, temperatures potentially 22 or 23. it stays fine for much of this upcoming week all thanks to high pressure, wind is

light and plenty of sunshine. it will start warm and cool down a little bit midweek onwards. this is bbc news. the headlines at midday: dame tessa jowell has died at the age of 70. the former labour cabinet minister was diagnosed with a brain tumour last may — she recently spoke in the house of lords while campaigning for better cancer treatments. what gives a life meaning? it is not only how it is lived, but how it draws to a close. i hope that this debate will give hope to other cancer patients, like me. tributes have been paid to dame tessa jowell, who was a significant figure in the last labour government. former prime minister tony blair said she will be remembered by many for her political talent, as well as her support and friendship. she did everything with the same

passion,