DEAD SEA, Jordan - The European Union’s foreign policy chief has told Iran’s foreign minister that Teheran should immediately halt military support for Russia and internal repression in Iran, reflecting worsening ties as diplomacy to revive the 2015 nuclear deal remains at a standstill.
Mr Josep Borrell said his meeting on Tuesday with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian in Jordan, where both are due to attend a regional conference, was necessary “amidst deteriorating Iran-EU relations”.
While there is no sign of a return to talks, Mr Borrell said the EU would continue to work with Iran on restoring the 2015 nuclear deal. The landmark 2015 deal was designed to prevent Iran from secretly developing a nuclear bomb, a goal Teheran has always denied.
“Agreed we must keep communication open and restore #JCPOA on basis of Vienna negotiations,” Mr Borrell said in a tweet, referring to talks on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action which have been stalled since September.
Jordan is hosting the Middle East summit that gathers regional and international players hoping to help resolve regional crises, particularly in neighbouring Iraq. The “Baghdad II” meeting, which will include officials from France and the EU, follows an August 2021 summit in Iraq’s capital organised at the initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron.
Iraq only recently arrived at a fragile compromise government after a year of political stalemate.
The effort to salvage Iran’s nuclear pact has grown steeper of late.
Iran has brutally cracked down on street protests, while Western states say Russia has used Iranian drones in its war in Ukraine, and Teheran has accelerated its nuclear programme, all of which raise the political price to giving Iran sanctions relief.
An Iranian foreign ministry statement said Mr Amirabdollahian “announced his country’s readiness to engage directly with Ukraine to alleviate any misunderstanding regarding Teheran’s position in the Ukraine war”.
Teheran has acknowledged supplying Moscow with drones but said they were sent before the war in Ukraine, where Russia has used them to target power stations and civilian infrastructure.
Mr Abdollahian also voiced his condemnation of Western support of protests in Iran and the “illegal” sanctions against his country. He said Iran was ready to finalise the Vienna negotiations on the basis of the previous draft deal.
Undeclared sites
The EU and United States have imposed new sanctions on Iranian officials over the crackdown on protests ignited by the death of 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini while in the morality police’s custody in September.
The protests mark one of the boldest challenges to Iran’s clerical leadership since the 1979 revolution. Teheran has accused Western powers of fomenting the unrest which security forces have met with a deadly crackdown.
According to the activist HRANA news agency, 502 protesters and 62 members of security forces have been killed.
The nuclear talks stalled as Western powers accused the Islamic Republic of raising unreasonable demands after all sides appeared to be nearing a deal.
One obstacle has been an impasse over uranium traces at undeclared sites.
On Monday, UN nuclear watchdog officials left Iran after talks with the head of its nuclear energy organisation, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported. It did not say whether they addressed the impasse.
Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported that Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani and EU nuclear talks coordinator Enrique Mora also attended Tuesday’s meeting. REUTERS. AFP
