liam booth—smith is chief executive of localis, which is an independent think tank based here in london yesterday, there were meetings, actually, between eu officials and the iran foreign minister. they are very much at pains try to retain ties as much as possible, aren't they? they are. the three eu nations, germany, france, and the uk, try to keep the deal alive through practical solutions. they are not blind to the wider challenges posed by iran in the region, but they all feel the deal isa region, but they all feel the deal is a stable platform to address those. but there is a window can be here. six months during which the us will face in sanctions, and john bolton has said that businesses trading in the region may suffer sanctions if they do that. and the way that this deal was initially intertwined, will with the us removing itself from the deal, if there are sanctions applied by the us, it makes it difficult for companies to operate into business just because of the us's noninvolvement, as it were. the eu will struggle to give the guarantees that it would like to see without som